UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT   OF   CAPT.   AND    MRS. 
PAUL   MCBRIDE  PERIGORD 


2.  /^  A 


IJMIVERSITY  of  CALTFORNLu 

LUS  ANliELES 
LFRRARY 


BURIED  ALIVE 


A  TALE  OF  THESE  DAYS 


ARNOLD  BENNETT 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  GRAND  BABYLON  HOTEL,"  ETC. 


COPYRIGHT  EDITION 


BRENT  A  NO'S 
NEW  YORK. 

145627 


Printed  in  Gcriiiatiy. 


B43t- 


TO 

JOHN   FREDERICK   FARRAR 

M.R.C.S.,    L.R.C.P. 

MY  COLLABORATOR 

IN   THIS   AND   MANY   OTHER   BOOKS 

A    GRATEFUL  EXPRESSION 

OF   OLD-ESTABLISHED   REGARD. 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2008  witii  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


littp://www.arcli  ive.org/details/buriedalivetaleoOObenn 


CONTENTS. 


Pago 

CriArTER       I.     The  Puce  Diessing-Gown 9 

Riches  and  Renown 13 

The  Dreadful  Secret 18 

Cure  for  Shj-iiess 22 

Jilaster  and  Servant 26 

A  Month's  Wages 29 

—  II.     A  Pail 32 

Tea        37 

Alice  Challice 45 

No  Gratuities 50 

—  Ill,     The  Photograph 55 

The  Nest 60 

Fame 64 

The  Ruling  Classes 69 

—  IV.     A  Scoop 79 

Cowardice 84 

In  the  Valhalla 88 

A  New  Hat 94 

—  V.     Alice  on  Hotels ,      .  100 

Difficulty  of  Truth-Telling 109 

Results  of  Rain n6 


3  CONTENTS. 

Page 

Chapter     VI.     A  T'litnoy  Morning 122 

The  Simple  Joy  of  Life 126 

Collapse  of  the  Putney  System    .     .     .     .  131 

—  VII.     The  Confession 146 

Tears 152 

A  Patron  of  the  Arts 158 

—  VIII.     An  Invasion 1 64 

A  Departure 176 

In  the  Bath 180 

—  IX.     A  Glossy  Male 185 

A  Connoisseur 188 

Parfitt's  Galleries 192 

The  Club 198 

—  X.     The  Secret 207 

Money-Getting 216 

A  Visit  to  the  Tailors' 220 

Alice  on  the  Situation 224 

—  XI.     An  Escape 229 

The  Nation's  Curiosity 233 

Mention  of  Two  I\Ioles 236 

Priam's  Refusal 244 

—  XII.     Alice's  Performances 251 

The  Public  Captious 257 

New  Evidence 260 

Thoughts  on  Justice .266 

The  Will  to  Live 268 

On  Board 271 


BURIED   ALIVE. 


CHAPTER    I. 

THE  PUCE  DRESSING-GOWN. 

The  peculiar  angle  of  the  earth's  axis  to  the  plane 
of  the  ecliptic — that  angle  which  is  chiefly  responsible 
for  our  geography  and  therefore  for  our  history — had 
caused  the  phenomenon  known  in  London  as  summer. 
The  whizzing  globe  happened  to  have  turned  its  most 
civilised  face  away  from  the  sun,  thus  producing  night 
in  Selwood  Terrace,  South  Kensington.  In  No.  91  Sel- 
wood  Terrace  two  lights,  on  the  ground-floor  and  on 
the  first-floor,  were  silently  proving  that  man's  ingenuity 
can  outwit  nature's.  No.  91  was  one  of  about  ten 
thousand  similar  houses  between  South  Kensington 
Station  and  North  End  Road.  With  its  grimy  stucco 
front,  its  cellar  kitchen,  its  hundred  stairs  and  steps,  its 
perfect  inconvenience,  and  its  conscience  heavy  with  the 
doing   to   death  of  sundry  general  servants,  it  uplifted 


lO  r.URIED  ALIVE. 

tin  chimney-cowls  to  heaven  and  gloomily  awaited  the 
day  of  judgment  for  London  houses,  sublimely  ignoring 
the  axial  and  orbital  velocities  of  the  earth  and  even 
the  reckless  flight  of  the  whole  solar  system  through 
space.  You  felt  that  No.  91  was  unhappy,  and  that  it 
could  only  be  rendered  happy  by  a  "To  let"  standard 
in  its  front  patch  and  a  "No  bottles"  card  in  its  cellar- 
windows.  It  possessed  neither  of  these  specifics. 
Though  of  late  generally  empty,  it  was  never  un- 
tenanted. In  the  entire  course  of  its  genteel  and  com- 
modious career  it  had  never  once  been  to  let. 

Go  inside,  and  breathe  its  atmosphere  of  a  bored 
house  that  is  generally  empty  yet  never  untenanted. 
All  its  twelve  rooms  dark  and  forlorn,  save  two;  its 
cellar  kitchen  dark  and  forlorn;  just  these  two  rooms, 
one  on  the  top  of  the  other  like  boxes,  pitifully  strug- 
gling against  the  inveterate  gloom  of  the  remaining  ten! 
Stand  in  the  dark  hall  and  get  this  atmosphere  into 
your  lungs. 

The  principal,  the  startling  thing  in  the  illuminated 
room  on  the  ground- floor  was  a  dressing-gown,  of  the 
colour,  between  heliotrope  and  purple,  known  to  a  pre- 
vious generation  as  puce;  a  quilted  garment  stuffed  with 
swansdown,  light  as  hydrogen — nearly,  and  warm  as 
the  smile  of  a  kind  heart;  old,  perhaps,  possibly  worn 
in  its  outlying  regions  and  allowing  fluffs  of  feathery 
white  to  escape  through  its  satin  pores;  but  a  dressing- 


THE  PUCE  DRESSING-GOWN.  1 1 

gown  to  dream  of.  It  dominated  the  unkempt,  naked 
apartment,  its  voluptuous  folds  glittering  crudely  under 
the  sun-replacing  oil  lamp  which  was  set  on  a  cigar-box 
on  the  stained  deal  table.  The  oil  lamp  had  a  glass 
reservoir,  a  chipped  chimney,  and  a  cardboard  shade, 
and  had  probably  cost  less  than  a  florin;  five  florins 
would  have  purchased  the  table;  and  all  the  rest  of  the 
furniture,  including  the  armchair  in  which  the  dressing- 
gown  reclined,  a  stool,  an  easel,  three  packets  of 
cigarettes  and  a  trouser-stretcher,  might  have  been  re- 
placed for  another  ten  florins.  Up  in  the  corners  of  the 
ceiling,  obscure  in  the  eclipse  of  the  cardboard  shade, 
was  a  complicated  system  of  cobwebs  to  match  the  dust 
on  the  bare  floor. 

Within  the  dressing-gown  there  was  a  man.  This 
man  had  reached  the  interesting  age.  I  mean  the  age 
when  you  think  you  have  shed  all  the  illusions  of  in- 
fancy, when  you  think  you  understand  life,  and  when 
you  are  often  occupied  in  speculating  upon  the  delicious 
surprises  which  existence  may  hold  for  you;  the  age,  in 
sum,  that  is  the  most  romantic  and  tender  of  all  ages 
— for  a  male.  I  mean  the  age  of  fifty.  An  age  ab- 
surdly misunderstood  by  all  those  who  have  not 
reached  it!  A  thrilling  age!  Appearances  are  tragic- 
ally deceptive. 

The  inhabitant  of  the  puce  dressing-gown  had  a 
short  greying  beard  and  moustache;  his  plenteous  hair 


12  BURIED  ALIVE. 

was  passing  from  pepper  into  salt;  there  were  many 
minute  wrinkles  in  the  hollows  between  his  eyes  and 
the  fresh  crimson  of  his  cheeks;  and  the  eyes  were  sad; 
they  were  very  sad.  Had  he  stood  erect  and  looked 
perpendicularly  down,  he  would  have  perceived,  not  his 
slippers,  but  a  protuberant  button  of  the  dressing-gown. 
Understand  me:  I  conceal  nothing;  I  admit  the  figures 
written  in  the  measurement-book  of  his  tailor.  He  was 
fifty.  Yet,  like  most  men  of  fifty,  he  was  still  very 
young,  and,  like  most  bachelors  of  fifty,  he  was  rather 
helpless.  He  was  quite  sure  that  he  had  not  had  the 
best  of  luck.  If  he  had  excavated  his  soul  he  would 
have  discovered  somewhere  in  its  deeps  a  wistful,  ap- 
pealing desire  to  be  taken  care  of,  to  be  sheltered  from 
the  inconveniences  and  harshness  of  the  world.  But  he 
would  not  have  admitted  the  discovery.  A  bachelor  of 
fifty  cannot  be  expected  to  admit  that  he  resembles  a 
girl  of  nineteen.  Nevertheless  it  is  a  strange  fact  that 
the  resemblance  between  the  heart  of  an  experienced, 
adventurous  bachelor  of  fifty  and  the  simple  heart  of  a 
girl  of  nineteen  is  stronger  than  girls  of  nineteen 
imagine;  especially  when  the  bachelor  of  fifty  is  sitting 
solitary  and  unfriended  at  two  o'clock  in  the  night,  in 
the  forlorn  atmosphere  of  a  house  that  has  outlived  its 
hopes.     Bachelors  of  fifty  alone  will  comprehend  me. 

It    has    never    been   decided   what  young   girls   do 
meditate   upon  when  they  meditate;   young  girls  them- 


RICHES  AND   RENO^VN.  I  3 

selves  cannot  decide.  As  a  rule  the  lonely  fancies  of 
middle-aged  bachelors  are  scarcely  less  amenable  to  de- 
finition. But  the  case  of  the  inhabitant  of  the  puce 
dressing-gown  was  an  exception  to  the  rule.  He  knew, 
and  he  could  have  said,  precisely  what  he  was  thinking 
about.  In  that  sad  hour  and  place,  his  melancholy 
thoughts  were  centred  upon  the  resplendent,  unique 
success  in  life  of  a  gifted  and  glorious  being  known  to 
nations  and  newspapers  as  Priam  Farll. 


RICHES  AND  RENO^VN. 

In  the  days  when  the  New  Gallery  was  new,  a 
picture,  signed  by  the  unknown  name  of  Priam  Farll, 
was  exhibited  there,  and  aroused  such  terrific  interest 
that  for  several  months  no  conversation  among  cultured 
persons  was  regarded  as  complete  without  some  refer- 
ence to  it.  That  the  artist  was  a  very  great  painter 
indeed  was  admitted  by  everyone;  the  only  question 
which  cultured  persons  felt  it  their  duty  to  settle  was 
whether  he  w^as  the  greatest  painter  that  ever  lived  or 
merely  the  greatest  painter  since  Velasquez.  Cultured 
persons  might  have  continued  to  discuss  that  nice  point 
to  the  present  hour,  had  it  not  leaked  out  that  the 
picture  had  been  refused  by  the  Royal  Academy.  The 
culture  of  London  then  at  once  healed  up  its  strife  and 
combined  to  fall  on  the  Royal  Academy  as  an  institu- 


14  r.URIKD  ALIVE. 

tion  which  had  no  right  to  exist.  The  affair  even  got 
into  Parhament  and  occupied  three  minutes  of  the  im- 
perial legislature.  Useless  for  the  Royal  Academy  to 
argue  that  it  had  overlooked  the  canvas,  for  its  dimen- 
sions were  seven  feet  by  five;  it  represented  a  police- 
man, a  simple  policeman,  life-size,  and  it  was  not  merely 
the  most  striking  portrait  imaginable,  but  the  first  ap- 
pearance of  the  policeman  in  great  art;  criminals,  one 
heard,  instinctively  fled  before  it.  No!  The  Royal 
Academy  really  could  not  argue  that  the  work  had 
been  overlooked.  And  in  truth  the  Royal  Academy  did 
not  argue  accidental  negligence.  It  did  not  argue 
about  its  own  right  to  exist.  It  did  not  argue  at  all. 
It  blandly  went  on  existing,  and  taking  about  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty  pounds  a  day  in  shillings  at  its  polished 
turnstiles.  No  details  were  obtainable  concerning  Priam 
Farll,  whose  address  was  Poste  Restante,  St.  Martin's- 
le-Grand.  Various  collectors,  animated  by  deep  faith 
in  their  own  judgment  and  a  sincere  desire  to  encourage 
British  art,  were  anxious  to  purchase  the  picture  for  a 
few  pounds,  and  these  enthusiasts  were  astonished  and 
pained  to  learn  that  Priam  Farll  had  marked  a  figure 
of  £  1,000 — the  price  of  a  rare  postage  stamp. 

In  consequence  the  picture  was  not  sold;  and  after 
an  enterprising  journal  had  unsuccessfully  offered  a  re- 
ward for  the  identification  of  the  portrayed  policeman, 
the  matter  went  gently  to  sleep   while  the  public  em- 


RICHES  AND  RENOWN.  I  5 

ployed  its  annual  holiday  as  usual  in  discussing  the  big 
gooseberry  of  matrimonial  relations. 

Everyone  naturally  expected  that  in  the  following 
year  the  mysterious  Priam  Farll  would,  in  accordance 
with  the  universal  rule  for  a  successful  career  in  British 
art,  contribute  another  portrait  of  another  policeman  to 
the  New  Gallery — and  so  on  for  about  twenty  years,  at 
the  end  of  which  period  England  would  have  learnt  to 
recognise  him  as  its  favourite  painter  of  policemen. 
But  Priam  Farll  contributed  nothing  to  the  New  Gallery. 
He  had  apparently  forgotten  the  New  Gallery;  which 
was  considered  to  be  ungracious,  if  not  ungrateful,  on 
his  part.  Instead,  he  adorned  the  Paris  salon  with  a 
large  seascape  showing  penguins  in  the  foreground. 
Now  these  penguins  became  the  penguins  of  the  con- 
tinental year;  they  made  penguins  the  fashionable  bird 
in  Paris,  and  also  (twelve  months  later)  in  London. 
The  French  Government  offered  to  buy  the  picture  on 
behalf  of  the  Republic  at  its  customary  price  of  five 
hundred  francs,  but  Priam  Farll  sold  it  to  the  American 
connoisseur  Whitney  C.  Whitt  for  five  thousand  dollars. 
Shortly  afterwards  he  sold  the  policeman,  whom  he  had 
kept  by  him,  to  the  same  connoisseur  for  ten  thousand 
dollars.  Whitney  C.  Whitt  was  the  expert  who  had 
paid  two  hundred  thousand  dollars  for  a  Madonna  and 
St.  Joseph,  with  donor,  of  Raphael.  The  enterprising 
journal  before  mentioned  calculated  that,  counting  the 


1 6  DURIED  ALIVE. 

space  actually  occupied  on  the  canvas  by  the  police- 
man, the  daring  connoisseur  had  expended  two  guineas 
per  square  inch  on  the  policeman. 

At  which  stage  the  vast  newspaper  public  suddenly 
woke  up  and  demanded  with  one  voice: 

"Who  is  this  Priam  Farll?" 

Though  the  query  remained  unanswered,  Priam 
Farll's  reputation  was  henceforward  absolutely  assured, 
and  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  omitted  to  comply 
with  the  regulations  ordained  by  English  society  for 
the  conduct  of  successful  painters.  He  ought,  first,  to 
have  taken  the  elementary  precaution  of  being  born  in 
the  United  States.  He  ought,  after  having  refused  all 
interviews  for  months,  to  have  ultimately  granted  a 
special  one  to  a  newspaper  with  the  largest  circulation. 
He  ought  to  have  returned  to  England,  grown  a  mane 
and  a  tufted  tail,  and  become  the  king  of  beasts;  or  at 
least  to  have  made  a  speech  at  a  banquet  about  the 
noble  and  purifying  mission  of  art.  Assuredly  he  ought 
to  have  painted  the  portrait  of  his  father  or  grandfather 
as  an  artisan,  to  prove  that  he  was  not  a  snob.  But 
no!  Not  content  with  making  each  of  his  pictures  ut- 
terly different  from  all  the  others,  he  neglected  all  the 
above  formalities — and  yet  managed  to  pile  triumph  on 
triumph.  There  are  some  men  of  whom  it  may  be 
said  that,  like  a  punter  on  a  good  day,  they  can't  do 
wrong.     I'riam  Farll  was  one  such.     In  a  few  years  he 


RICHES  AND  RENOWN.  17 

had  become  a  legend,  a  standing  side-dish  of  a  riddle. 
No  one  knew  him;  no  one  saw  him;  no  one  married 
him.  Constantly  abroad,  he  was  ever  the  subject  of 
conflicting  rumours.  Parfitts  themselves,  his  London 
agents,  knew  naught  of  him  but  his  handwriting — on 
the  backs  of  cheques  in  four  figures.  They  sold  an 
average  of  five  large  and  five  small  pictures  for  him 
every  year.  These  pictures  arrived  out  of  the  unknown 
and  the  cheques  went  into  the  unknown. 

Young  artists,  mute  in  admiration  before  the  master- 
pieces from  his  brush  which  enriched  all  the  national 
galleries  of  Europe  (save,  of  course,  that  in  Trafalgar 
Square),  dreamt  of  him,  worshipped  him,  and  quarrelled 
fiercely  about  him,  as  the  very  symbol  of  glory,  luxury 
and  flawless  accomplishment,  never  conceiving  him  as  a 
man  like  themselves,  with  boots  to  lace  up,  a  palette 
to  clean,  a  beating  heart,  and  an  instinctive  fear  of 
solitude. 

Finally  there  came  to  him  the  paramount  distinc- 
tion, the  last  proof  that  he  was  appreciated.  The  press 
actually  fell  into  the  habit  of  mentioning  his  name 
without  explanatory  comment.  Exactly  as  it  does  not 
write  "Mr.  A.  J.  Balfour,  the  eminent  statesman,"  or 
"Sarah  Bernhardt,  the  renowned  actress,"  or  "Charles 
Peace,  the  historic  murderer,"  but  simply  "Mr.  A.  J. 
Balfour,"  "Sarah  Bernhardt"  or  "Charies  Peace;"  so  it 
wrote  simply  "Mr.  Priam  Farll."     And  no  occupant  of 

Buried  Alive,  3 


lb  BURIED   AT.IVE. 

a  smoker  in  a  morning  train  ever  took  his  pipe  out  of 
his  mouth  to  ask,  "What  is  the  Johnny?"  Greater 
honour  in  England  hath  no  man.  Priam  Farll  was  the 
first  English  painter  to  enjoy  this  supreme  social  re- 
ward. 

And    now    he    was    inhabiting    the    puce    dressing- 
gown. 


THE  DREADFUL   SECRET. 

A  bell  startled  the  forlorn  house;  its  loud  old- 
fashioned  jangle  came  echoingly  up  the  basement  stairs 
and  struck  the  ear  of  Priam  Farll,  who  half  rose  and 
then  sat  down  again.  He  knew  that  it  was  an  urgent 
summons  to  the  front  door,  and  that  none  but  he  could 
answer  it;  and  yet  he  hesitated. 

Leaving  Priam  Farll,  the  great  and  wealthy  artist, 
we  return  to  that  far  more  interesting  person,  Priam 
Farll  the  private  human  creature;  and  come  at  once  to 
the  dreadful  secret  of  his  character,  the  trait  in  him 
which  explained  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  his  life. 

As  a  private  human  creature,  he  happened  to  be  shy. 

He  was  quite  different  from  you  or  me.  We  never 
feel  secret  qualms  at  the  prospect  of  meeting  strangers, 
or  of  taking  quarters  at  a  grand  hotel,  or  of  entering  a 
large  house  for  the  first  time,  or  of  walking  across  a 
room  full  of  seated  people,  or  of  dismissing  a  servant, 


THE  DREADFUL  SECRET.  I  9 

or  of  arguing  with  a  haughty  female  aristocrat  behind 
a  post-office  counter,  or  of  passing  a  shop  where  we  owe 
money.  As  for  blushing  or  hanging  back,  or  even  look- 
ing awkward,  when  faced  with  any  such  simple,  every- 
day acts,  the  idea  of  conduct  so  childish  would  not 
occur  to  us.  We  behave  naturally  under  all  circum- 
stances— for  why  should  a  sane  man  behave  otherwise? 
Priam  Farll  was  different.  To  call  the  world's  attention 
visually  to  the  fact  of  his  own  existence  was  anguish  to 
him.  But  in  a  letter  he  could  be  absolutely  brazen. 
Give  him  a  pen  and  he  was  fearless. 

Now  he  knew  that  he  would  have  to  go  and  open 
the  front  door.  Both  humanity  and  self-interest  urged 
him  to  go  instantly.  For  the  visitant  was  assuredly  the 
doctor,  come  at  last  to  see  the  sick  man  lying  upstairs. 
The  sick  man  was  Henry  Leek,  and  Henry  Leek  was 
Priam  Farll's  bad  habit.  While  somewhat  of  a  rascal 
(as  his  master  guessed),  Leek  was  a  very  perfect  valet. 
Like  you  and  me,  he  was  never  shy.  He  always  did 
the  natural  thing  naturally.  He  had  become,  little  by 
little,  indispensable  to  Priam  Farll,  the  sole  means  of 
living  communication  between  Priam  Farll  and  the  uni- 
verse of  men.  The  master's  shyness,  resembling  a 
deer's,  kept  the  pair  almost  entirely  out  of  England, 
and,  on  their  continuous  travels,  the  servant  invariably 
stood  between  that  sensitive  diffidence  and  the  world. 
Leek  saw  everyone  who  had  to  be  seen,  and  did  every- 

2* 


20  BURIED  ALIVE. 

thing  that  invoh'ed  personal  contacts.  And,  being  a 
bad  habit,  he  had  of  course  grown  on  Priam  Farll,  and 
thus,  year  after  year,  for  a  quarter  of  a  century,  Farll's 
shyness,  with  his  riches  and  his  glory,  had  increased. 
Happily  Leek  was  never  ill.  That  is  to  say,  he  never 
had  been  ill,  until  this  day  of  their  sudden  incognito 
arrival  in  London  for  a  brief  sojourn.  He  could  hardly 
have  chosen  a  more  inconvenient  moment;  for  in  London 
of  all  places,  in  that  inherited  house  in  Selwood  Terrace 
which  he  so  seldom  used,  Priam  Farll  could  not  carry 
on  daily  life  without  him.  It  really  was  unpleasant  and 
disturbing  in  the  highest  degree,  this  illness  of  Leek's. 
The  fellow  had  apparently  caught  cold  on  the  night- 
boat.  He  had  fought  the  approaches  of  insidious  dis- 
ease for  several  hours,  going  forth  to  make  purchases 
and  incidentally  consulting  a  doctor;  and  then,  without 
warning,  in  the  very  act  of  making  up  Priam  Farll's 
couch,  he  had  abandoned  the  struggle,  and,  since  his 
own  bed  was  not  ready,  he  had  taken  to  his  master's. 
He  always  did  the  natural  thing  naturally.  And  Farll 
had  been  forced  to  help  him  to  undress! 

From  this  point  onwards  Priam  Farll,  opulent  though 
he  was  and  illustrious,  had  sunk  to  a  tragic  impotence. 
He  could  do  nothing  for  himself;  and  he  could  do 
nothing  for  Leek,  because  Leek  refused  both  brandy 
and  sandwiches,  and  the  larder  consisted  solely  of 
brandy  and  sandwiches.     The  man  lay  upstairs  there, 


THE  DREADFUL  SECRET.  21 

comatose,  still,  silent,  waiting  for  the  doctor  who  had 
promised  to  pay  an  evening  visit.  And  the  summer  day 
had  darkened  into  the  summer  night. 

The  notion  of  issuing  out  into  the  world  and 
personally  obtaining  food  for  himself  or  aid  for  Leek, 
did  genuinely  seem  to  Priam  Farll  an  impossible  notion; 
he  had  never  done  such  things.  For  him  a  shop  was 
an  impregnable  fort  garrisoned  by  ogres.  Besides,  it 
would  have  been  necessary  to  'ask,'  and  'asking'  was 
the  torture  of  tortures.  So  he  had  wandered,  solicitous 
and  helpless,  up  and  down  the  stairs,  until  at  length 
Leek,  ceasing  to  be  a  valet  and  deteriorating  into  a 
mere  human  organism,  had  feebly  yet  curtly  requested 
to  be  just  let  alone,  asserting  that  he  was  right  enough. 
Whereupon  the  envied  of  all  painters,  the  symbol  of 
artistic  glory  and  triumph,  had  assumed  the  valet's 
notorious  puce  dressing-gown  and  established  himself  in 
a  hard  chair  for  a  night  of  discomfort. 

The  bell  rang  once  more,  and  there  was  a  sharp 
impressive  knock  that  reverberated  through  the  forlorn 
house  in  a  most  portentous  and  terrifying  manner.  It 
might  have  been  death  knocking.  It  engendered  the 
horrible  suspicion,  "Suppose  he's  seriously  ill?"  Priam 
Farll  sprang  up  nervously,  braced  to  meet  ringers  and 
knockers. 


22  BURIED  ALIVE. 


CURE  FOR  SHYNESS. 


On  the  other  side  of  the  door,  dressed  in  frock  coat 
and  silk  hat,  there  stood  hesitating  a  tall,  thin,  weary 
man  who  had  been  afoot  for  exactly  twenty  hours,  in 
pursuit  of  his  usual  business  of  curing  imaginary 
ailments  by  means  of  medicine  and  suggestion,  and 
leaving  real  ailments  to  nature  aided  by  coloured  water. 
His  attitude  towards  the  medical  profession  was  some- 
what sardonic,  partly  because  he  was  convinced  that 
only  the  gluttony  of  South  Kensington  provided  him  with 
a  livelihood,  but  more  because  his  wife  and  two  fully- 
developed  daughters  spent  too  much  on  their  frocks. 
For  years,  losing  sight  of  the  fact  that  he  was  an  im- 
mortal soul,  they  had  been  treating  him  as  a  breakf;\st- 
in-the-slot  machine:  they  put  a  breakfast  in  the  slot, 
pushed  a  button  of  his  waistcoat,  and  drew  out  bank- 
notes. For  this,  he  had  neither  partner,  nor  assistant, 
nor  carriage,  nor  holiday:  his  wife  and  daughters  could 
not  afford  him  these  luxuries.  He  was  able,  con- 
scientious, chronically  tired,  bald  and  fifty.  He  was 
also,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  shy;  though  indeed  he 
had  grown  used  to  it,  as  a  man  gets  used  to  a  hollow 
tooth  or  an  eel  to  skinning.  No  qualities  of  the  young 
girl's  heart  about  the  heart  of  Dr.  Cashmore!  He  really 
did  know  human  nature,  and  he  never  dreamt  of  any- 


CURE  FOR  SHYNESS.  2^ 

thing  more  paradisiacal  than  a  Sunday  Pullman  escapade 
to  Brighton. 

Priam  Farll  opened  the  door  which  divided  these 
two  hesitating  men,  and  they  saw  each  other  by  the 
light  of  the  gas  lamp  (for  the  hall  was  in  darkness). 

"This  Mr.  Farll's?"  asked  Dr.  Cashmore,  with  the 
unintentional  asperity  of  shyness. 

As  for  Priam,  the  revelation  of  his  name  by  Leek 
shocked  him  almost  into  a  sweat.  Surely  the  number 
of  the  house  should  have  sufficed. 

"Yes,"  he  admitted,  half  shy  and  half  vexed.  "Are 
you  the  doctor?" 

"Yes." 

Dr.  Cashmore  stepped  into  the  obscurity  of  the  hall. 

"How's  the  invalid  going  on?" 

"I  can  scarcely  tell  you,"  said  Priam.  "He's  in 
bed,  very  quiet." 

"That's  right,"  said  the  doctor.  "When  he  came 
to  my  surgery  this  morning  I  advised  him  to  go  to 
bed." 

Then  followed  a  brief  awkward  pause,  during  which 
Priam  Farll  coughed  and  the  doctor  rubbed  his  hands 
and  hummed  a  fragment  of  melody. 

"By  Jove!"  the  thought  flashed  through  the  mind  of 
Farll.     "This  chap's  shy,  I  do  believe!" 

And  through  the  mind  of  the  doctor,  "Here's  an- 
other of  'em,  all  nerves!" 


24  BURIED  ALIVE. 

They  both  instantly,  from  sheer  good-natured  con- 
descension the  one  to  the  other,  became  at  ease.  It 
was  as  if  a  spring  had  been  loosed.  Priam  shut  the 
door  and  shut  out  the  ray  of  the  street  lamp. 

"I'm  afraid  there's  no  light  here,"  said  he. 

"I'll  strike  a  match,"  said  the  doctor. 

"Thanks  very  much,"  said  Priam. 

The  flare  of  a  wax  vesta  illumined  the  splendours 
of  the  puce  dressing-gown.  But  Dr.  Cashmore  did  not 
blench.  He  could  flatter  himself  that  in  the  matter  of 
dressing-gowns  he  had  nothing  to  learn. 

"By  the  way,  what's  wrong  with  him,  do  you  think?" 
Priam  Farll  inquired  in  his  most  boyish  voice. 

"Don't  know.  Chill!  He  had  a  loud  cardiac  mur- 
mur. Might  be  anything.  That's  why  I  said  I'd  call 
anyhow  to-night.  Couldn't  come  any  sooner.  Been  on 
my  feet  since  six  o'clock  this  morning.  You  know  what 
it  is — G.  P.'s  day." 

He  smiled  grimly  in  his  fatigue. 

"It's  very  good  of  you  to  come,"  said  Priam  Farll 
with  warm,  vivacious  sympathy.  He  had  an  astonish- 
ing gift  for  imaginatively  putting  himself  in  the  place  of 
other  people. 

"Not  at  all!"  the  doctor  muttered.  He  was  quite 
touched.  To  hide  the  fact  that  he  was  touched  he 
struck  a  second  match.     "Shall  we  go  upstairs?" 

In  the  bedroom  a  candle  was  burning  on  a  dusty 


CURE  FOR  SHYNESS.  2$ 

and  empty  dressing-table.  Dr.  Cashmore  moved  it  to 
the  vicinity  of  the  bed,  which  was  Uke  an  oasis  of 
decent  arrangement  in  the  desert  of  comfortless  chamber; 
then  he  stooped  to  examine  the  sick  valet. 

"He's  shivering!"  exclaimed  the  doctor  softly. 

Henry  Leek's  skin  was  indeed  bluish,  though,  be- 
sides blankets,  there  was  a  considerable  apparatus  of 
rugs  on  the  bed,  and  the  night  was  warm.  His  ageing 
face  (for  he  was  the  third  man  of  fifty  in  that  room) 
had  an  anxious  look.  But  he  made  no  movement, 
uttered  no  word,  at  sight  of  the  doctor;  just  stared, 
dully.  His  own  difficult  breathing  alone  seemed  to 
interest  him. 

"Any  women  up?" 

The  doctor  turned  suddenly  and  fiercely  on  Priam 
Farll,  who  started. 

"There's  only  ourselves  in  the  house,"  he  replied. 

A  person  less  experienced  than  Dr.  Cashmore  in 
the  secret  strangenesses  of  genteel  life  in  London  might 
have  been  astonished  by  this  information.  But  Dr. 
Cashmore  no  more  blenched  now  than  he  had  blenched 
at  the  puce  garment. 

"Well,  hurry  up  and  get  some  hot  water,"  said  he, 
in  a  tone  dictatorial  and  savage.  "Quick,  now!  And 
brandy!  And  more  blankets!  Now  don't  stand  there, 
please!  Here!  I'll  go  with  you  to  the  kitchen.  Show 
me!"     He  snatched  up  the  candle,  and  the  expression 


26  BURIED  AUVE. 

of  his  features  said,  "I  can  see  you're  no  good  in  a 
crisis." 

"It's  all  up  with  me,  doctor,"  came  a  faint  whisper 
from  the  bed. 

"So  it  is,  my  boy!"  said  the  doctor  under  his 
breath  as  he  tumbled  downstairs  in  the  wake  of  Priam 
Farll.     "Unless  I  get  something  hot  into  you!" 


MASTER  AND   SERVANT, 

"Will  there  have  to  be  an  inquest?"  Priam  Farll 
asked  at  6  a.m. 

He  had  collapsed  in  the  hard  chair  on  the  ground- 
floor.  The  indispensable  Henry  Leek  was  lost  to  him 
for  ever.  He  could  not  imagine  what  would  happen  to 
his  existence  in  the  future.  He  could  not  conceive 
himself  without  Leek.  And,  still  worse,  the  immediate 
prospect  of  unknown  horrors  of  publicity  in  connection 
with  the  death  of  Leek  overwhelmed  him. 

"No!"  said  the  doctor,  cheerfully.  "Oh  no!  I  was 
present.  Acute  double  pneumonia!  Sometimes  happens 
like  that!  I  can  give  a  certificate.  But  of  course  you 
will  have  to  go  to  the  registrar's  and  register  the 
death." 

Even  without  an  inquest,  he  saw  that  the  affair 
would  be  unthinkably  distressing.  He  felt  that  it  would 
kill  him,  and  he  put  his  hand  to  his  face. 


IMASTER  AND   SERVANT.  2"] 

"Where  are  Mr.  Farll's  relatives  to  be  found?"  the 
doctor  asked. 

"Mr.  Farll's  relatives?"  Priam  Farll  repeated  with- 
out comprehending. 

Then  he  understood.  Dr.  Cashmore  thought  that 
Henry  Leek's  name  was  Farll!  And  all  the  sensitive 
timidity  in  Priam  Farll's  character  seized  swiftly  at  the 
mad  chance  of  escape  from  any  kind  of  public  ap- 
pearance as  Priam  Farll.  Why  should  he  not  let  it  be 
supposed  that  he,  and  not  Henry  Leek,  had  expired 
suddenly  in  Selwood  Terrace  at  5  a.m.  He  would  be 
free,  utterly  free! 

"Yes,"  said  the  doctor.  "They  must  be  informed, 
naturally." 

Priam's  mind  ran  rapidly  over  the  catalogue  of  his 
family.  He  could  think  of  no  one  nearer  than  a  certain 
Duncan  Farll,  a  second  cousin. 

"I  don't  think  he  had  any,"  he  replied  in  a  voice 
that  trembled  with  excitement  at  the  capricious  rash- 
ness of  what  he  was  doing.  "Perhaps  there  were  distant 
cousins.     But  Mr.  Farll  never  talked  of  them." 

Which  was  true. 

He  could  scarcely  articulate  the  words  "Mr.  Farll." 
But  when  they  were  out  of  his  mouth  he  felt  that  the 
deed  was  somehow  definitely  done. 

The    doctor    gazed    at  Priam's    hands,    the   rough, 


28  BURIED  ALIVE. 

coarsened  hands  of  a  painter  who  is  always  messing  in 
oils  and  dust. 

"Pardon  me,"  said  the  doctor.  "I  presume  you  are 
his  valet — or " 

"Yes,"  said  Priam  Farll. 

That  set  the  seal. 

"What  was  your  master's  full  name?"  the  doctor 
demanded. 

And  Priam  Farll  shivered. 

"Priam  Farll,"  said  he  weakly. 

"Not  the — - — ?"  loudly  exclaimed  the  doctor,  whom 
the  hazards  of  life  in  London  had  at  last  staggered. 

Priam  nodded. 

"Well,  well!"  The  doctor  gave  vent  to  his  feelings. 
The  truth  was  that  this  particular  hazard  of  life  in  Lon- 
don pleased  him,  flattered  him,  made  him  feel  im- 
portant in  the  world,  and  caused  him  to  forget  his 
fatigue  and  his  wrongs. 

He  saw  that  the  puce  dressing-gown  contained  a 
man  who  was  at  the  end  of  his  tether,  and  with  that 
good  nature  of  his  which  no  hardships  had  been  able 
to  destroy,  he  offered  to  attend  to  the  preliminary 
formalities.     Then  he  went. 


A  month's  wages.  29 


A  month's  wages. 

Priam  Farll  had  no  intention  of  falling  asleep;  his 
desire  was  to  consider  the  position  which  he  had  so 
rashly  created  for  himself;  but  he  did  fall  asleep— and 
in  the  hard  chair!  He  was  awakened  by  a  tremendous 
clatter,  as  if  the  house  was  being  bombarded  and  there 
were  bricks  falling  about  his  ears.  When  he  regained 
all  his  senses  this  bombardment  resolved  itself  into  no- 
thing but  a  loud  and  continued  assault  on  the  front- 
door. He  rose,  and  saw  a  frowsy,  dishevelled,  puce- 
coloured  figure  in  the  dirty  mirror  over  the  fireplace 
And  then,  with  stiff  limbs,  he  directed  his  sleepy  feet 
towards  the  door. 

Dr.  Cashmore  was  at  the  door,  and  still  another 
man  of  fifty,  a  stern-set,  blue-chinned,  stoutish  person  in 
deep  and  perfect  mourning,  including  black  gloves. 

This  person  gazed  coldly  at  Priam  Farll. 

"Ah!"  ejaculated  the  mourner. 

And  stepped  in,  followed  by  Dr.  Cashmore. 

In  achieving  the  inner  mat  the  mourner  perceived  a 
white  square  on  the  floor.  He  picked  it  up  and  care- 
fully examined  it,  and  then  handed  it  to  Priam  Farll. 

"I  suppose  this  is  for  you,"  said  he. 

Priam,  accepting  the  envelope,  saw  that  it  was  ad- 


30  BURIED  ALIVE, 

dressed  to  "Henry  Leek,  Esq.,  91  Selvvood  Terrace, 
S.W.,"  in  a  woman's  hand. 

"It  is  for  you,  isn't  it?"  pursued  the  mourner  in  an 
inflexible  voice. 

"Yes,"  said  Priam. 

"I  am  Mr.  Duncan  Farll,  a  sohcitor,  a  cousin  of  your 
late  employer,"  the  metallic  voice  continued,  coming 
through  a  set  of  large,  fine,  white  teeth.  "What  arrange- 
ments have  you  made  during  the  day?" 

Priam  stammered:    "None.     Pve  been  asleep." 

"You  aren't  very  respectful,"  said  Duncan  Farll. 

So  this  was  his  second  cousin,  whom  he  had  met, 
once  only,  as  a  boy!  Never  would  he  have  recognised 
Duncan.  Evidently  it  did  not  occur  to  Duncan  to  re- 
cognise him.  People  are  apt  to  grow  unrecognisable  in 
the  course  of  forty  years. 

Duncan  Farll  strode  about  the  ground-floor  of  the 
house,  and  on  the  threshold  of  each  room  ejaculated 
"Ah!"  or  "Ha!"  Then  he  and  the  doctor  went  up- 
stairs. Priam  remained  inert,  and  excessively  disturbed, 
in  the  hall. 

At  length  Duncan  Farll  descended. 

"Come  in  here,  Leek,"  said  Duncan. 

And  Priam  meekly  stepped  after  him  into  the  room 
where  the  hard  chair  was.  Duncan  Farll  took  the  hard 
chair. 

"What  are  your  wages?" 


A  month's  wages.  31 

Priam  sought  to  remember  how  much  he  had  paid 
Henry  Leek. 

"A  hundred  a  year,"  said  he. 

"Ah!    A  good  wage.     When  were  you  last  paid?" 

Priam  remembered  that  he  had  paid  Leek  two  days 
ago. 

"The  day  before  yesterday,"  said  he. 

"I  must  say  again  you  are  not  very  respectful," 
Duncan  observed,  drawing  forth  his  pocket-book.  "How- 
ever, here  is  £8  ']s.,  a  month's  wages  in  lieu  of  notice. 
Put  your  things  together,  and  go.  I  shall  have  no 
further  use  for  you.  I  will  make  no  observations  of 
any  kind.  But  be  good  enough  to  dress — it  is  three 
o'clock — and  leave  the  house  at  once.  Let  me  see  your 
box  or  boxes  before  you  go." 

When  an  hour  later,  in  the  gloaming,  Priam  Farll 
stood  on  the  wrong  side  of  his  own  door,  with  Henry 
Leek's  heavy  kit-bag  and  Henry  Leek's  tin  trunk  flank- 
ing him  on  either  hand,  he  saw  that  events  in  his 
career  were  moving  with  immense  rapidity.  He  had 
wanted  to  be  free,  and  free  he  was.  Quite  free!  But 
it  appeared  to  him  very  remarkable  that  so  much  could 
happen,  in  so  short  a  time,  as  the  result  of  a  mere  mo- 
mentary impulsive  prevarication. 


BURIED  AUVE. 


CHAPTER    n. 
A  PAIL. 

Sticking  out  of  the  pocket  of  Leek's  light  overcoat 
was  a  folded  copy  of  the  Daily  Telegraph.  Priam  Farll 
was  something  of  a  dandy,  and  Uke  all  right-thinking 
dandies  and  all  tailors,  he  objected  to  the  suave  line  of 
a  garment  being  spoilt  by  a  free  ut^ilisation  of  pockets. 
The  overcoat  itself,  and  the  suit  beneath,  were  quite 
good;  for,  though  they  were  the  property  of  the  late 
Henry  Leek,  they  perfectly  fitted  Priam  Farll  and  had 
recently  belonged  to  him.  Leek  having  been  accustomed 
to  clothe  himself  entirely  from  his  master's  wardrobe. 
The  dandy  absently  drew  forth  the  Telegraph,  and  the 
first  thing  that  caught  his  eye  was  this:  "A  beautiful 
private  hotel  of  the  highest  class.  Luxuriously  furnished. 
Visitor's  comfort  studied.  Finest  position  in  London. 
Cuisine  a  speciality.  Quiet.  Suitable  for  persons  of 
superior  rank.  Bathroom.  Electric  light.  Separate 
tables.  No  irritating  extras.  Single  rooms  from  2^  guineas, 
double  from  4  guineas  weekly.  250  Queen's  Gate." 
And  below  this  he  saw  another  piece  of  news:  "Not  a 
boarding-house.     A   magnificent  mansion.      Forty   bed- 


A  PAIL.  33 

rooms  by  Waring.  Superb  public  saloons  by  Maple. 
Parisian  chef.  Separate  tables.  Four  bathrooms.  Card- 
room,  billiard-room,  vast  lounge.  Young,  cheerful, 
musical  society.  Bridge  (small).  Special  sanitation. 
Finest  position  in  London.  No  irritating  extras.  Single 
rooms  from  2^  guineas,  double  from  4  guineas  weekly. 
Phone  10,073  Western.     Trefusis  Mansion,  W." 

At  that  moment  a  hansom  cab  came  ambling  down 
Selwood  Terrace. 

Impulsively  he  hailed  it. 

"  'Ere,  guv'nor,"  said  the  cabman,  seeing  with  an 
expert  eye  that  Priam  Farll  was  unaccustomed  to  the 
manipulation  of  luggage.  "Give  this  'ere  Hacken- 
schmidt  a  copper  to  lend  ye  a  hand.  You're  only  a 
light  weight." 

A  small  and  emaciated  boy,  ^vith  the  historic  re- 
mains of  a  cigarette  in  his  mouth,  sprang  like  a  monkey 
up  the  steps,  and,  not  waiting  to  be  asked,  snatched 
the  trunk  from  Priam's  hands.  Priam  gave  him  one  of 
Leek's  sixpences  for  his  feats  of  strength,  and  the  boy 
spat  generously  on  the  coin,  at  the  same  time,  by  a 
strange  skill,  clinging  to  the  cigarette  with  his  lower  lip. 
Then  the  driver  lifted  the  reins  with  a  noble  gesture, 
and  Priam  had  to  be  decisive  and  get  into  the  cab. 

"250  Queen's  Gate,"  said  he. 

As,  keeping  his  head  to  one  side  to  avoid  the  reins, 
he  gave  the  direction  across  the  roof  of  the  cab  to  the 

Buried  Alive,  3 


34  BURIED  ALIVE. 

attentive  cocked  ear  of  the  cabman,  he  felt  suddenly 
that  he  had  regained  his  nationality,  that  he  was  utterly 
English,  in  an  atmosphere  utterly  English.  The  hansom 
was  like  home  after  the  wilderness. 

He  had  chosen  250  Queen's  Gate  because  it  ap- 
peared the  abode  of  tranquillity  and  discretion.  He  felt 
that  he  might  sink  into  250  Queen's  Gate  as  into  a 
feather  bed.  The  other  palace  intimidated  him.  It 
recalled  the  terrors  of  a  continental  hotel.  In  his  wan- 
derings he  had  suffered  much  from  the  young,  cheerful 
and  musical  society  of  bright  hotels,  and  bridge  (small) 
had  no  attraction  for  him. 

As  the  cab  tinkled  through  canyons  of  familiar 
stucco,  he  looked  further  at  the  Telegraph.  He  was 
rather  surprised  to  find  more  than  a  column  of  enticing 
palaces,  each  in  the  finest  position  in  London;  London, 
in  fact,  seemed  to  be  one  unique,  glorious  position. 
And  it  was  so  welcome,  so  receptive,  so  wishful  to 
make  a  speciality  of  your  comfort,  your  food,  your  bath, 
your  sanitation!  He  remembered  the  old  boarding- 
houses  of  the  eighties.  Now  all  was  changed,  for  the 
better.  The  Telegraph  was  full  of  the  better,  crammed 
and  packed  with  tight  columns  of  it.  The  better  burst 
aspiringly  from  the  tops  of  columns  on  the  first  page 
and  outsoared  the  very  title  of  the  paper.  He  saw 
there,  for  instance,  to  the  left  of  the  title,  a  new,  refined 
tea-house  in  Piccadilly  Circus,  owned   and  managed  by 


A  PAIL.  35 

gentlewomen,  where  you  had  real  tea  and  real  bread- 
and-butter  and  real  cakes  in  a  real  drawing-room.  It 
was  astounding. 

The  cab  stopped. 

"Is  this  it?"  he  asked  the  driver. 

"This  is  250,  sir." 

And  it  was.  But  it  did  not  resemble  even  a  private 
hotel.  It  exactly  resembled  a  private  house,  narrow 
and  tall  and  squeezed  in  between  its  sister  and  its 
brother.  Priam  Farll  was  puzzled,  till  the  solution  oc- 
curred to  him.  "Of  course,"  he  said  to  himself.  "This 
is  the  quietude,  the  discretion.  I  shall  like  this."  He 
jumped  down. 

"I'll  keep  you,"  he  threw  to  the  cabman,  in  the 
proper  phrase  (which  he  was  proud  to  recall  from  his 
youth),  as  though  the  cabman  had  been  something 
which  he  had  ordered  on  approval. 

There  were  two  bell-knobs.  He  pulled  one,  and 
waited  for  the  portals  to  open  on  discreet  vistas  of 
luxurious  furniture.  No  response!  Then  he  pulled  the 
other  knob.  Still  no  response!  Just  as  he  was  con- 
sulting the  Telegraph  to  make  sure  of  the  number,  the 
door  silently  swung  back,  and  disclosed  the  figure  of  a 
middle-aged  woman  in  black  silk,  who  regarded  him 
with  a  stern  astonishment. 

"Is  this ?"  he  began,   nervous  and  abashed  by 

her  formidable  stare. 

3* 


36  BURIED  ALIVE, 

"Were  you  wanting  rooms?"  she  asked. 

"Yes,"  said  he.     "I  was.     If  I  could  just  see " 

"Will  you  come  in?"  she  said.  And  her  morose 
face,  under  stringent  commands  from  her  brain,  began 
an  imitation  of  a  smile  which,  as  an  imitation,  was 
wonderful.  It  made  you  wonder  how  she  had  ever 
taught  her  face  to  do  it. 

Priam  Farll  found  himself  blushing  on  a  Turkey 
carpet,  and  a  sort  of  cathedral  gloom  around  him.  He 
was  disconcerted,  but  the  Turkey  carpet  assured  him 
somewhat.  As  his  eyes  grew  habituated  to  the  light 
he  saw  that  the  cathedral  was  very  narrow,  and  that 
instead  of  the  choir  was  a  staircase,  also  clothed  in 
Turkey  carpet.  On  the  lowest  step  reposed  an  object 
whose  nature  he  could  not  at  first  determine. 

"Would  it  be  for  long?"  the  lips  opposite  him  mut- 
tered cautiously. 

His  reply — the  reply  of  an  impulsive,  shy  nature — ■ 
was  to  rush  out  of  the  palace.  He  had  identified  the 
object  on  the  stairs.  It  was  a  slop-pail  with  a  wrung 
cloth  on  its  head. 

He  felt  profoundly  discouraged  and  pessimistic.  All 
his  energy  had  left  him.  London  had  become  hard, 
hostile,  cruel,  impossible.  He  longed  for  Leek  with  a 
great  longing. 


TEA.  37 


TEA. 

An  hour  later,  having  at  the  kind  suggestion  of  the 
cabman  deposited  Leek's  goods  at  the  cloak-room  of 
South  Kensington  Station,  he  was  wandering  on  foot 
out  of  old  London  into  the  central  ring  of  new  London, 
where  people  never  do  anything  except  take  the  air  in 
parks,  lounge  in  club-windows,  roll  to  and  fro  in  peculiar 
vehicles  that  have  ventured  out  without  horses  and  are 
making  the  best  of  it,  buy  flowers  and  Egyptian  cigarettes, 
look  at  pictures,  and  eat  and  drink.  Nearly  all  the 
buildings  were  higher  than  they  used  to  be,  and  the 
street  wider;  and  at  intervals  of  a  hundred  yards  or  so 
cranes  that  rent  the  clouds  and  defied  the  law  of  gravity 
were  continually  swinging  bricks  and  marble  into  the 
upper  layers  of  the  air.  Violets  were  on  sale  at  every 
corner,  and  the  atmosphere  was  impregnated  with  an 
intoxicating  perfume  of  methylated  spirits.  Presently 
he  arrived  at  an  immense  arched  facade  bearing  princi- 
pally the  legend  "Tea,"  and  he  saw  within  hundreds 
of  persons  sipping  tea;  and  next  to  that  was  another 
arched  facade  bearing  principally  the  word  "Tea,"  and 
he  saw  within  more  hundreds  sipping  tea;  and  then 
another;  and  then  another;  and  then  suddenly  he  came 
to  an  open  circular  place  that  seemed  vaguely  familiar. 

"By  Jovel"  he  said.     "This  is  Piccadilly  Circus!" 


145827 


38  BURIED  ALn^. 

And  just  at  that  moment,  over  a  narrow  doorway, 
he  perceived  the  image  of  a  green  tree,  and  the  words, 
"The  Elm  Tree."  It  was  the  entrance  to  the  Elm  Tree 
Tea  Rooms,  so  well  spoken  of  in  the  Telegraph.  In 
certain  ways  he  was  a  man  of  advanced  and  humane 
ideas,  and  the  thought  of  delicately  nurtured  needy 
gentlewomen  bravely  battling  with  the  world  instead  of 
starving  as  they  used  to  starve  in  the  past,  appealed  to 
his  chivalry.  He  determined  to  assist  them  by  taking 
tea  in  the  advertised  drawing-room.  Gathering  together 
his  courage,  he  penetrated  into  a  corridor  lighted  by 
pink  electricity,  and  then  up  pink  stairs.  A  pink  door 
stopped  him  at  last.  It  might  have  hid  mysterious  and 
questionable  things,  but  it  said  laconically  "Push,"  and 
he  courageously  pushed.  ...  He  was  in  a  kind  of 
boudoir  thickly  populated  with  tables  and  chairs.  The 
swift  transmigration  from  the  blatant  street  to  a  drawing- 
room  had  a  startling  effect  on  him:  it  caused  him  to 
whip  off  his  hat  as  though  his  hat  had  been  red  hot. 
Except  for  two  tall  elegant  creatures  who  stood  together 
at  the  other  end  of  the  boudoir,  the  chairs  and  tables 
had  the  place  to  themselves.  He  was  about  to  stammer 
an  excuse  and  fly,  when  one  of  the  gentlewomen  turned 
her  eye  on  him  for  a  moment,  and  so  he  sat  down. 
The  gentlewomen  then  resumed  their  conversation.  He 
glanced  cautiously  about  him.  Elm-trees,  firmly  rooted 
in  a  border  of  Indian  matting,  grew  round  all  the  walls 


TEA.  39 

in  exotic  profusion,  and  their  topmost  branches  splashed 
over  onto  the  ceiling.  A  card  on  the  trunk  of  a  tree, 
announcing  curtly,  "Dogs  not  allowed,"  seemed  to  en- 
hearten  him.  After  a  pause  one  of  the  gentlewomen 
swam  haughtily  towards  him  and  looked  him  between 
the  eyes.  She  spoke  no  word,  but  her  firm,  austere 
glance  said: 

"Now,  out  with  it,  and  see  you  behave  yourself!" 

He  had  been  ready  to  smile  chivalrously.  But  the 
smile  was  put  to  sudden  death. 

"Some  tea,  please,"  he  said  faintly,  and  his 
intimidated  tone  said,  "If  it  isn't  troubling  you  too 
much." 

"What  do  you  want  with  it?"  asked  the  gentle- 
woman abruptly,  and  as  he  was  plainly  at  a  loss  she 
added,  "Crumpets  or  tea-cake?" 

"Tea-cake,"  he  replied,  though  he  hated  tea-cake. 
But  he  was  afraid. 

"You've  escaped  this  time,"  said  the  drapery  of  her 
muslins  as  she  swam  from  his  sight.  "But  no  nonsense 
while  I'm  away!" 

When  she  sternly  and  mutely  thrust  the  refection 
before  him,  he  found  that  everything  on  the  table  ex- 
cept the  tea-cakes  and  the  spoon  was  growing  elm- 
trees. 

After  one  cup  and  one  slice,  when  the  tea  had  be- 
come   stewed    and    undrinkable,    and    the    tea-cake    a 


40  BURIED  ALIVE. 

material  suitable  for  the  manufacture  of  shooting  boots, 
lie  resumed,  at  any  rate  partially,  his  presence  of  mind, 
and  remembered  that  he  had  done  nothing  positively 
criminal  in  entering  the  boudoir  or  drawing-room  and 
requesting  food  in  return  for  money.  Besides,  the 
gentlewomen  were  now  pretending  to  each  other  that  he 
did  not  exist,  and  no  other  rash  persons  had  been 
driven  by  hunger  into  the  virgin  forest  of  elm-trees.  He 
began  to  meditate,  and  his  meditations,  taking — for 
him — an  unusual  turn,  caused  him  surreptitiously  to 
examine  Henry  Leek's  pocket-book  (previously  only 
known  to  him  by  sight).  He  had  not  for  many  years 
troubled  himself  concerning  money,  but  the  discovery 
that,  when  he  had  paid  for  the  deposit  of  luggage  at 
the  cloak-room,  a  solitary  sovereign  rested  in  the 
pocket  of  Leek's  trousers,  had  suggested  to  him  that  it 
would  be  advisable  sooner  or  later  to  consider  the 
financial  aspect  of  existence. 

There  were  two  banknotes  for  ten  pounds  each  in 
Leek's  pocket-book;  also  five  French  banknotes  of  a 
thousand  francs  each,  and  a  number  of  Italian  bank- 
notes of  small  denominations:  the  equivalent  of  two 
hundred  and  thirty  pounds  altogether,  not  counting  a 
folded  inch-rule,  some  postage  stamps,  and  a  photograph 
of  a  pleasant- faced  woman  of  forty  or  so.  This  sum 
seemed  neither  vast  nor  insignificant  to  Priam  Farll.  It 
seemed   to    him    merely    a    tangible    something    which 


TEA,  41 

would  enable  him  to  banish  the  fiscal  question  from  his 
mind  for  an  indefinite  period.  He  scarcely  even 
troubled  to  wonder  what  Leek  was  doing  with  over  two 
years  of  Leek's  income  in  his  pocket-book.  He  knew, 
or  at  least  he  with  certainty  guessed,  that  Leek  had 
been  a  rascal.  Still,  he  had  had  a  sort  of  grim,  cynical 
affection  for  Leek.  And  the  thought  that  Leek  would 
never  again  shave  him,  nor  tell  him  in  accents  that 
brooked  no  delay  that  his  hair  must  be  cut,  nor  register 
his  luggage  and  secure  his  seat  on  long-distance  ex- 
presses, filled  him  with  very  real  melancholy.  He  did 
not  feel  sorry  for  Leek,  nor  say  to  himself  "Poor  Leek!" 
Nobody  who  had  had  the  advantage  of  Leek's  ac- 
quaintance would  have  said  "Poor  Leek!"  For  Leek's 
greatest  speciality  had  always  been  the  speciality  of 
looking  after  Leek,  and  wherever  Leek  might  be  it  was 
a  surety  that  Leek's  interests  would  not  suffer.  There- 
fore Priam  Farll's  pity  was  mainly  self-centred. 

And  though  his  dignity  had  been  considerably 
damaged  during  the  final  moments  at  Selwood  Terrace, 
there  was  matter  for  congratulation.  The  doctor,  for 
instance,  had  shaken  hands  with  him  at  parting;  had 
shaken  hands  openly,  in  the  presence  of  Duncan  Farll: 
a  flattering  tribute  to  his  personality.  But  the  chief  of 
Priam  Farll's  satisfactions  in  that  desolate  hour  was  that 
he  had  suppressed  himself,  that  for  the  world  he  existed 
no   more.     I   shall    admit   frankly  that   this  satisfaction 


42  BURIED   ALIVE. 

nearly  outweighed  his  grief.  He  sighed — and  it  was  a 
sigh  of  tremendous  rehef  For  now,  by  a  miracle,  he 
would  be  free  from  the  menace  of  Lady  Sophia  En- 
twistle.  Looking  back  in  calmness  at  the  still  recent 
Entwistle  episode  in  Paris — the  real  originating  cause  of 
his  sudden  flight  to  London — he  was  staggered  by  his 
latent  capacity  for  downright,  impulsive  foolishness. 
Like  all  shy  people  he  had  fits  of  amazing  audacity — 
and  his  recklessness  usually  took  the  form  of  making 
himself  agreeable  to  women  whom  he  encountered  in 
travel  (he  was  much  less  shy  with  women  than  with 
men).  But  to  propose  marriage  to  a  weather-beaten 
haunter  of  hotels  like  Lady  Sophia  Entwistle,  and  to 
reveal  his  identity  to  her,  and  to  allow  her  to  accept 
his  proposal — the  thing  had  been  unimaginably  inept! 

And  now  he  was  free,  for  he  was  dead. 

He  was  conscious  of  a  chill  in  the  spine  as  he  dwelt 
on  the  awful  fate  which  he  had  escaped.  He,  a  man 
of  fifty,  a  man  of  set  habits,  a  man  habituated  to  the 
liberty  of  the  wild  stag,  to  bow  his  proud  neck  under 
the  solid  footwear  of  Lady  Sophia  Entwistle! 

Yes,  there  was  most  decidedly  a  silver  lining  to  the 
dark  cloud  of  Leek's  translation  to  another  sphere  of 
activity. 

In  replacing  the  pocket-book  his  hand  encountered 
the  letter  which  had  arrived  for  Leek  in  the  morning. 
Arguing  with  himself  whether  he  ought  to  open  it,   he 


TEA.  43 

Opened  it.  It  ran:  "Dear  Mr.  Leek,  I  am  so  glad  to 
have  your  letter,  and  I  think  the  photograph  is  most 
gentlemanly.  But  I  do  wish  you  would  not  write  with 
a  type-writer.  You  don't  know  how  this  affects  a  wo- 
man, or  you  wouldn't  do  it.  However,  I  shall  be  so 
glad  to  meet  you  now,  as  you  suggest.  Suppose  we  go 
to  Maskelyne  and  Cook's  together  to-morrow  afternoon 
(Saturday).  You  know  it  isn't  the  Egyptian  Hall  any 
more.  It  is  in  St.  George's  Hall,  I  think.  But  you 
will  see  it  in  the  Telegraph;  also  the  time.  I  will  be 
there  when  the  doors  open.  You  will  recognise  me 
from  my  photograph;  but  I  shall  wear  red  roses  in  my 
hat.  So  au  revoir  for  the  present.  Yours  sincerely, 
Alice  Challice.  P.S. — There  are  always  a  lot  of  dark 
parts  at  Maskelyne  and  Cook's.  I  must  ask  you  to  be- 
have as  a  gentleman  should.  Excuse  me.  I  merely 
mention  it  in  case. — A.C." 

Infamous  Leek!  Here  was  at  any  rate  one  explana- 
tion of  a  mysterious  little  type-writer  which  the  valet 
had  always  carried,  but  which  Priam  had  left  at  Sel- 
wood  Terrace. 

Priam  glanced  at  the  photograph  in  the  pocket- 
book;  and  also,  strange  to  say,  at  the  Telegraph. 

A  lady  with  three  children  burst  into  the  drawing- 
room,  and  instantly  occupied  the  whole  of  it;  the 
children    cried    "Mathaw!"    "Mathah!"    "Mathaw!"    in 


44  BURIED  ALIVE. 

shrill  tones  of  varied  joy.  As  one  of  the  gentlewomen 
passed  near  him,  he  asked  modestly — 

"How  much,  please?" 

She  dropped  a  flake  of  paper  onto  his  table  with- 
out arresting  her  course,  and  said  warningly: 

"You  pay  at  the  desk." 

When  he  hit  on  the  desk,  which  was  hidden  behind 
a  screen  of  elm-trees,  he  had  to  face  a  true  aristocrat — 
and  not  in  muslins,  either.  If  the  others  were  the 
daughters  of  earls,  this  was  the  authentic  countess  in  a 
tea-gown. 

He  put  down  Leek's  sovereign. 

"Haven't  you  anything  smaller?"  snapped  the 
countess. 

"I'm  sorry  I  haven't,"  he  replied. 

She  picked  up  the  sovereign  scornfully,  and  turned 
it  over. 

"It's  very  awkward,"  she  muttered. 

Then  she  unlocked  two  drawers,  and  unwillingly 
gave  him  eighteen  and  sixpence  in  silver  and  copper, 
without  another  word  and  without  looking  at  him. 

"Thank  you,"  said  he,  pocketing  it  nervously. 

And,  amid  reiterated  cries  of  "Mathah!"  "Mathaw!" 
"Mathah!"  he  hurried  away,  unregarded,  unregretted, 
splendidly  repudiated  by  these  delicate  refined  creatures 
who  were  struggling  for  a  livelihood  in  a  great  city. 


ALICE  CHALLICE.  45 


ALICE   CHALLICE. 

"I  suppose  you  are  Mr.  Leek,  aren't  you?"  a  woman 
greeted  him  as  he  stood  vaguely  hesitant  outside  St. 
George's  Hall,  watching  the  afternoon  audience  emerge. 
He  started  back,  as  though  the  woman  with  her  trace 
of  Cockney  accent  had  presented  a  revolver  at  his  head. 
He  was  very  much  afraid.  It  may  reasonably  be  asked 
what  he  was  doing  up  at  St.  George's  Hall.  The  an- 
swer to  this  most  natural  question  touches  the  deepest 
springs  of  human  conduct.  There  were  two  men  in 
Priam  Farll.  One  was  the  shy  man,  who  had  long  ago 
persuaded  himself  that  he  actually  preferred  not  to  mix 
with  his  kind,  and  had  made  a  virtue  of  his  cowardice. 
The  other  was  a  doggish,  devil-may-care  fellow  who 
loved  dashing  adventures  and  had  a  perfect  passion  for 
free  intercourse  with  the  entire  human  race.  No.  2 
would  often  lead  No.  i  unsuspectingly  forward  to  a 
difficult  situation  from  which  No.  i,  though  angry  and 
uncomfortable,  could  not  retire. 

Thus  it  was  No.  2  who  with  the  most  casual  air  had 
wandered  up  Regent  Street,  drawn  by  the  slender 
chance  of  meeting  a  woman  with  red  roses  in  her  hat; 
and  it  was  No.  i  who  had  to  pay  the  penalty.  Nobody 
could  have  been  more  astonished  than  No.  2  at  the  ful- 
filment of  No.  2's  secret  yearning  for  novelty.     But  the 


46  BURIED  ALIVE, 

innocent  sincerity  of  No.  2's  astonishment  gave  no  aid  to 
No.  I. 

Farll  raised  his  hat,  and  at  the  same  moment  per- 
ceived the  roses.  He  might  have  denied  the  name  of 
Leek  and  fled,  but  he  did  not.  Though  his  left  leg  was 
ready  to  run,  his  right  leg  would  not  stir. 

Then  he  was  shaking  hands  with  her.  But  how 
had  she  identified  him? 

"I  didn't  really  expect  you,"  said  the  lady,  always 
with  a  slight  Cockney  accent.  "But  I  thought  how  silly 
it  would  be  for  me  to  miss  the  vanishing  trick  just  be- 
cause you  couldn't  come.     So  in  I  went,  by  myself" 

"Why  didn't  you  expect  me?"  he  asked  diffidently. 

"Well,"  she  said,  "Mr.  Farll  being  dead,  I  knew 
you'd  have  a  lot  to  do,  besides  being  upset  like." 

"Oh  yes,"  he  said  quickly,  feeling  that  he  must  be 
more  careful;  for  he  had  quite  forgotten  that  Mr.  Farll 
was  dead.     "How  did  you  know?" 

"How  did  I  know!"  she  cried.  "Well,  I  like  that! 
Look  anywhere!  It's  all  over  London,  has  been  these 
six  hours."  She  pointed  to  a  ragged  man  who  was 
wearing  an  orange-coloured  placard  by  way  of  apron. 
On  the  placard  was  printed  in  large  black  letters: 
"Sudden  death  of  Priam  Farll  in  London.  Special 
Memoir."  Other  ragged  men,  also  wearing  aprons,  but 
of  different  colours,  similarly  proclaimed  by  their  attire 
that  Priam  Farll  was  dead.     And  people  crowding  out 


ALICE   CHALLICE.  47 

of  St.  George's  Hall  were  continually  buying  newspapers 
from  these  middlemen  of  tidings. 

He  blushed.  It  was  singular  that  he  could  have 
walked  even  half-an-hour  in  Central  London  without 
noticing  that  his  own  name  flew  in  the  summer  breeze 
of  every  street.  But  so  it  had  been.  He  was  that  sort 
of  man.  Now  he  understood  how  Duncan  Farll  had 
descended  upon  Selwood  Terrace. 

"You  don't  mean  to  say  you  didn't  see  those 
posters?"  she  demanded. 

"I  didn't,"  he  said  simply. 

"That  shows  how  you  must  have  been  thinking!" 
said  she.     "Was  he  a  good  master?" 

"Yes,  very  good,"  said  Priam  Farll  with  conviction. 

"I  see  you're  not  in  mourning." 

"No.     That  is " 

"I  don't  hold  with  mourning  myself,"  she  proceeded. 
"They  say  it's  to  show  respect.  But  it  seems  to  me 
that  if  you  can't  show  your  respect  without  a  pair  of 
black  gloves  that  the  dye's  always  coming  off  .  .  .  I 
don't  know  what  you  think,  but  I  never  did  hold  with 
mourning.  It's  grumbling  against  Providence  too!  Not 
but  what  I  think  there's  a  good  deal  too  much  talk 
about  Providence.  I  don't  know  what  you  think, 
but " 

"I  quite  agree  with  you,"  he  said,  with  a  warm 
generous  smile  which  sometimes  rushed  up  and  trans- 


48  BURIED  ALIVE. 

formed  his  face  before  he  was  aware  of  the  occur- 
rence. 

And  she  smiled  also,  gazing  at  him  half  con- 
fidentially. She  was  a  little  woman,  stoutish — indeed, 
stout;  puffy  red  cheeks;  a  too  remarkable  white  cotton 
blouse;  and  a  crimson  skirt  that  hung  unevenly;  grey 
cotton  gloves;  a  green  sunshade;  on  the  top  of  all  this 
the  black  hat  with  red  roses.  The  photograph  in  Leek's 
pocket-book  must  have  been  taken  in  the  past.  She 
looked  quite  forty-five,  whereas  the  photograph  in- 
dicated thirty-nine  and  a  fraction.  He  gazed  down  at 
her  protectively,  with  a  good-natured  appreciative  con- 
descension. 

"I  suppose  you'll  have  to  be  going  back  again 
soon,  to  arrange  things  like,"  she  said.  It  was  always 
she  who  kept  the  conversation  afloat. 

"No,"  he  said.  "I've  finished  there.  They've  dis- 
missed me." 

"Who  have?" 

"The  relatives." 

"Why?" 

He  shook  his  head. 

"I  hope  you  made  them  pay  you  your  month,"  said 
she  firmly. 

He  was  glad  to  be  able  to  give  a  satisfactory  an- 
swer. 

After  a  pause  she  resumed  bravely: 


ALICE   CtlALLICE.  49 

"So  Mr.  Farll  was  one  of  these  artists?  At  least  so 
I  see  according  to  the  paper." 

He  nodded. 

"It's  a  very  funny  business,"  she  said.  "But  I 
suppose  there's  some  of  them  make  quite  a  nice  in- 
come out  of  it.  Fou  ought  to  know  about  that,  being 
in  it,  as  it  were." 

Never  in  his  hfe  had  he  conversed  on  such  terms 
with  such  a  person  as  Mrs.  Ahce  ChalHce.  She  was  in 
every  way  a  novehy  for  him — in  clothes,  manners,  ac- 
cent, deportment,  outlook  on  the  world  and  on  paint. 
He  had  heard  and  read  of  such  beings  as  Mrs.  Alice 
Challice,  and  now  he  was  in  direct  contact  with  one  of 
them.  The  whole  affair  struck  him  as  excessively  odd, 
as  a  mad  escapade  on  his  part.  Wisdom  in  him 
deemed  it  ridiculous  to  prolong  the  encounter,  but  shy 
folly  could  not  break  loose.  Moreover  she  possessed 
the  charm  of  her  novelty;  and  there  was  that  in  her 
which  challenged  the  male  in  him. 

"Well,"  she  said,  "I  suppose  we  can't  stand  here 
for  ever!" 

The  crowd  had  frittered  itself  away,  and  an  at- 
tendant was  closing  and  locking  the  doors  of  St.  George's 
Hall.     He  coughed. 

"It's  a  pity  it's  Saturday  and  all  the  shops  closed. 
But  anyhow  suppose  we  walk  along  Oxford  Street  all 
the  same?     Shall  we?"     This  from  her. 

Buried  Alive.  4 


50  BURIED   ALIVE. 

"By  all  means." 

"Now  there's  one  thing  I  should  like  to  say,"  she 
murmured  with  a  calm  smile  as  they  moved  off. 
"You've  no  occasion  to  be  shy  with  me.  Tliere's  no 
call  for  it.     I'm  just  as  you  see  me." 

"Shy!"  he  exclaimed,  genuinely  surprised.  "Do  I 
seem  shy  to  you?"  He  thought  he  had  been  magni- 
ficently doggish. 

"Oh,  well,"  she  said.  "That's  all  right,  then,  if 
you  aren't.  I  should  take  it  as  a  poor  compliment, 
being  shy  with  me.  Where  do  you  think  we  can  have 
a  good  talk?  I'm  free  for  the  evening.  I  don't  know 
about  you." 

Her  eyes  questioned  his. 


NO   GRATUITIES. 

At  a  later  hour,  they  were  entering,  side  by  side,  a 
Glittering  establishment  whose  interior  seemed  to  be 
walled  chiefly  in  bevelled  glass,  so  that  everywhere  the 
curious  observer  saw  himself  and  twisted  fractions  of 
himself.  The  glass  was  relieved  at  frequent  intervals 
by  elaborate  enamelled  signs  which  repeated,  "No  gra- 
tuities." It  seemed  that  the  directors  of  the  establish- 
ment wished  to  make  perfectly  clear  to  visitors  that, 
whatever  else  they  might  find,  they  must  on  no  account 
expect  gratuities. 


NO   GRATUITIES.  5I 

"I've  always  wanted  to  come  here,"  said  Mrs.  Alice 
Challice  vivaciously,  glancing  up  at  Priam  Farll's  modest, 
middle-aged  face. 

Then,  after  they  had  successfully  passed  through  a 
preliminary  pair  of  bevelled  portals,  a  huge  man  dressed 
like  a  policeman,  and  achieving  a  very  successful 
imitation  of  a  policeman,  stretched  out  his  hand,  and 
stopped  them. 

"In  line,  please,"  he  said. 

"I  thought  it  was  a  restaurant,  not  a  theatre,"  Priam 
whispered  to  Mrs.  Challice. 

"So  it  is  a  restaurant,"  said  his  companion.  "But 
I  hear  they're  obliged  to  do  like  this  because  there's 
always  such  a  crowd.     It's  very  'andsome,  isn't  it?" 

He  agreed  that  it  was.  He  felt  that  London  had 
got  a  long  way  in  front  of  him  and  that  he  would  have 
to  hurry  a  great  deal  before  he  could  catch  it  up. 

At  length  another  imitation  of  a  policeman  opened 
more  doors  and,  with  other  sinners,  they  w^ere  released 
from  purgatory  into  a  clattering  paradise,  which  again 
offered  everything  save  gratuities.  They  were  conducted 
to  a  small  table  full  of  dirty  plates  and  empty  glasses 
in  a  corner  of  the  vast  and  lofty  saloon.  A  man  in 
evening  dress  whose  eye  said,  "Now  mind,  no  insulting 
gratuities!"  rushed  past  the  table  and  in  one  deft  amazing 
gesture  swept  off  the  whole  of  its  contents  and  was 
gone  with  them.     It  was  an  astounding  feat,   and  when 


52  BURIED  ALIVE. 

Priam  recovered  from  his  amazement  he  fell  into  an- 
other amazement  on  discovering  that  by  some  magic 
means  the  man  in  evening  dress  had  insinuated  a  gold- 
charactered  menu  into  his  hands.  This  menu  was  ex- 
ceedingly long — it  comprised  everything  except  gra- 
tuities— and,  evidently  knowing  from  experience  that  it 
was  not  a  document  to  be  perused  and  exhausted  in 
five  minutes,  the  man  in  evening  dress  took  care  not 
to  interrupt  the  studies  of  Priam  Farll  and  Alice  Chal- 
lice  during  a  full  quarter  of  an  hour.  Then  he  re- 
turned like  a  bolt,  put  them  through  an  examination 
in  the  menu,  and  fled,  and  when  he  was  gone  they 
saw  that  the  table  was  set  with  a  clean  cloth  and  in- 
struments and  empty  glasses.  A  band  thereupon  burst 
into  gay  strains,  like  the  band  at  a  music-hall  after 
something  very  difficult  on  the  horizontal  bar.  And  it 
played  louder  and  louder;  and  as  it  played  louder,  so 
the  people  talked  louder.  And  the  crash  of  cymbals 
mingled  with  the  crash  of  plates,  and  the  altercations 
of  knives  and  forks  with  the  shrill  accents  of  chatterers 
determined  to  be  heard.  And  men  in  evening  dress  (a 
costume  which  seemed  to  be  forbidden  to  sitters  at 
tables)  flitted  to  and  fro  with  inconceivable  rapidity, 
austere,  preoccupied  conjurers.  And  from  every  marble 
wall,  bevelled  mirror,  and  Doric  column,  there  spoke 
silently  but  insistently  the  haunting  legend,  "No  gra- 
tuities." 


NO    GRATUITIES.  55 

Thus  Priam  Farll  began  his  first  pubhc  meal  in 
modern  London.  He  knew  the  hotels;  he  knew  the 
restaurants,  of  half-a-dozen  countries,  but  he  had  never 
been  so  overwhelmed  as  he  was  here.  Remembering 
London  as  a  city  of  wooden  chop-houses,  he  could 
scarcely  eat  for  the  thoughts  that  surged  through  his 
brain. 

"Isn't  it  amusing?"  said  Mrs.  Challice  benignantly, 
over  a  glass  of  lager.  "Lm  so  glad  you  brought  me 
here.     I've  always  wanted  to  come." 

And  then,  a  few  minutes  afterwards,  she  was  saying, 
against  the  immense  din — 

"You  know,  I've  been  thinking  for  years  of  getting 
married  again.  And  if  you  really  are  thinking  of  getting 
married,  what  are  you  to  do?  You  may  sit  in  a  chair 
and  wait  till  eggs  are  sixpence  a  dozen,  and  you'll  be 
no  nearer.  You  must  do  something.  And  what  is 
there  except  a  matrimonial  agency?  I  say — what's  the 
matter  with  a  matrimonial  agency,  anyhow?  If  you 
want  to  get  married,  you  want  to  get  married,  and  it's 
no  use  pretending  you  don't,  I  do  hate  pretending,  I 
do.  No  shame  in  wanting  to  get  married,  is  there?  I 
think  a  matrimonial  agency  is  a  very  good,  useful  thing. 
They  say  you're  swindled.  Well,  those  that  are  deserve 
to  be.  You  can  be  swindled  ^'ithout  a  matrimonial 
agency,  seems  to  me.  Not  that  I've  ever  been.  Plain 
coramonsense  people   never   are.     No,   if  you   ask   me, 


54  BURIED  ALIVE. 

matrimonial  agencies  are  the  most  sensible  things — after 
dress-shields — that's  ever  been  invented.  And  I'm  sure 
if  anything  comes  of  this,  I  shall  pay  the  fees  with  the 
greatest  pleasure.     Now  don't  you  agree  with  me?" 

The  whole  mystery  stood  explained. 

"Absolutely!"  he  said. 

And  felt  the  skin  creeping  in  the  small  of  his  back. 


THE  PHOTOGRAPH.  55 


CHAPTER    m. 
THE    PHOTOGRAPH. 

From  the  moment  of  Mrs.  Challice's  remarks  in 
favour  of  matrimonial  agencies  Priam  Farll's  existence 
became  a  torture  to  him.  She  was  what  he  had  ahvays 
been  accustomed  to  think  of  as  "a  very  decent  woman;" 
but  really  .  .  . !  The  sentence  is  not  finished  because 
Priam  never  finished  it  in  his  own  mind.  Fifty  times 
he  conducted  the  sentence  as  far  as  'really,'  and  there 
it  dissolved  into  an  uncomfortable  cloud. 

"I  suppose  we  shall  have  to  be  going,"  said  she, 
when  her  ice  had  been  eaten  and  his  had  melted. 

"Yes,"  said  he,  and  added  to  himself,  "But  where?" 

However,  it  would  be  a  relief  to  get  out  of  the 
restaurant,  and  he  called  for  the  bill. 

While  they  were  waiting  for  the  bill  the  situation 
grew  more  strained.  Priam  was  aware  of  a  desire  to 
fling  down  sovereigns  on  the  table  and  rush  wildly 
away.  Even  Mrs.  Challice,  vaguely  feeling  this,  had  a 
difficulty  in  conversing. 

"You  are  like  your  photograph!"  she  remarked, 
glancing   at   his   face,   which — it   should   be   said — had 


56  BURIKD   ALIVE. 

very  much  changed  within  half-an-hour.  He  had  a  face 
capable  of  a  hundred  expressions  per  day.  His  present 
expression  was  one  of  his  anxious  expressions,  medium 
in  degree.  It  can  be  figured  in  the  mask  of  a  person 
who  is  locked  up  in  an  iron  strong-room,  and,  feeling  ill 
at  ease,  notices  that  the  walls  are  getting  red-hot  at  the 
corners. 

"Like  my  photograph?"  he  exclaimed,  astonished 
that  he  should  resemble  Leek's  photograph. 

"Yes,"  she  asseverated  stoutly.  "I  knew  you  at 
once.     Especially  by  the  nose." 

"Have  you  got  it  here?"  he  asked,  interested  to  sec 
what  portrait  of  Leek  had  a  nose  like  his  own. 

And  she  pulled  out  of  her  handbag  a  photograph, 
not  of  Leek,  but  of  Priam  Farll.  It  was  an  unmounted 
print  of  a  negative  which  he  and  Leek  had  taken 
together  for  the  purposes  of  a  pose  in  a  picture,  and  it 
had  decidedly  a  distinguished  appearance.  But  why 
should  Leek  despatch  photographs  of  his  master  to 
strange  ladies  introduced  through  a  matrimonial  agency? 
Priam  Farll  could  not  imagine — unless  it  was  from  sheer 
unscrupulous,  careless  bounce. 

She  gazed  at  the  portrait  with  obvious  joy. 

"Now,  candidly,  don't  jou  think  it's  very,  very  good?" 
she  demanded. 

"I  suppose  it  is,"  he  agreed.  He  would  probably 
have  given  two  hundred  pounds  for  the  courage  to  e\- 


THE  PHOTOGRAPH.  57 

plain  to  her  in  a  few  well-chosen  words  that  there  had 
been  a  vast  mistake,  a  huge  impulsive  indiscretion.  But 
two  hundred  thousand  pounds  would  not  have  bought 
that  courage. 

"I  love  it,"  she  ejaculated  fervently — with  heat,  and 
yet  so  nicely!  And  she  returned  the  photograph  to  her 
little  bag. 

She  lowered  her  voice. 

"You  haven't  told  me  whether  you  were  ever  married. 
I've  been  waiting  for  that." 

He  blushed.     She  was  disconcertingly  personal. 

"No,"  he  said. 

"And  you've  always  lived  like  that,  alone  like;  no 
home;  travelling  about;  no  one  to  look  after  you, 
properly?"    There  was  distress  in  her  voice. 

He  nodded.     "One  gets  accustomed  to  it." 

"Oh  yes,"  she  said.     "I  can  understand  that." 

"No  responsibilities,"  he  added, 

"No.  I  can  understand  all  that."  Then  she 
hesitated.  "But  I  do  feel  so  sorry  for  you  ...  all  these 
years!" 

And  her  eyes  were  moist,  and  her  tone  was  so 
sincere  that  Priam  Farll  found  it  quite  remarkably 
affecting.  Of  course  she  was  talking  about  Henry  Leek, 
the  humble  valet,  and  not  about  Leek's  illustrious 
master.  But  Priam  saw  no  difference  between  his  lot 
and  that  of  Leek.     He  felt  that  there  was  no  essential 


5  b  BURIED  ALIVE. 

difference,  and  that,  despite  Leek's  multiple  perfections 
as  a  valet,  he  never  had  been  looked  after — properly. 
Her  voice  made  him  feel  just  as  sorry  for  himself  as 
she  was  sorry  for  him;  it  made  him  feel  that  she  had  a 
kind  heart,  and  that  a  kind  heart  was  the  only  thing 
on  earth  that  really  mattered.  Ah!  If  Lady  Sophia 
Entwistle  had  spoken  to  him  in  such  accents  .  .  . ! 

The  bill  came.  It  was  so  small  that  he  was  ashamed 
to  pay  it.  The  suppression  of  gratuities  enabled  the 
monarch  of  this  bevelled  palace  to  offer  a  complete 
dinner  for  about  the  same  price  as  a  thimbleful  of  tea 
and  ten  drachms  of  cake  a  few  yards  away.  Happily 
the  monarch,  foreseeing  his  shame,  had  arranged  a 
peculiar  method  of  payment  through  a  little  hole,  where 
the  receiver  could  see  nothing  but  his  blushing  hands. 
As  for  the  conjurers  in  evening  dress,  they  apparently 
never  soiled  themselves  by  contact  with  specie. 

Outside  on  the  pavement,  he  was  at  a  loss  what  to 
do.  You  see,  he  was  entirely  unfamiliar  with  Mrs. 
Challice's  code  of  etiquette. 

"\Vould  you  care  to  go  to  the  Alhambra  or  some- 
where?" he  suggested,  having  a  notion  that  this  was  the 
correct  thing  to  say  to  a  lady  whose  presence  near  you 
was  directly  due  to  her  desire  for  marriage. 

"It's  very  good  of  you,"  said  she.  "But  I'm  sure 
you  only  say  it  out  of  kindness — because  you're  a 
gentleman.     It  wouldn't  be  quite  nice  for  you  to  go  to  a 


THE  PHOTOGRAPH.  59 

music-hall  to-night.  I  know  I  said  I  was  free  for  the 
evening,  but  I  wasn't  thinking.  It  wasn't  a  hint — no, 
truly!  I  think  I  shall  go  home — and  perhaps  some 
other " 

"I  shall  see  you  home,"  said  he  quickly.  Impulsive, 
again ! 

"Would  you  really  like  to?  Can  you?"  In  the 
bluish  glare  of  an  electricity  that  made  the  street 
whiter  than  day,  she  blushed.  Yes,  she  blushed  like  a 
girl. 

She  led  him  up  a  side-street  where  was  a  kind  of 
railway  station  unfamiliar  to  Priam  Farll's  experience, 
tiled  like  a  butcher's  shop  and  as  clean  as  Holland. 
Under  her  direction  he  took  tickets  for  a  station  whose 
name  he  had  never  heard  of,  and  then  they  passed 
through  steel  railings  which  clacked  behind  them  into  a 
sort  of  safe  deposit,  from  which  the  only  emergence  was 
a  long  dim  tunnel.  Painted  hands,  pointing  to  the 
mysterious  word  "lifts,"  waved  you  onwards  down  this 
tunnel.  "Huriy  up,  please,"  came  a  voice  out  of  the 
spectral  gloom.  Mrs.  Challice  thereupon  ran.  Now  up 
the  tunnel,  opposing  all  human  progress,  there  blew  a 
steady  trade-wind  of  tremendous  force.  Immediately 
Priam  began  to  run  the  trade-wind  removed  his  hat, 
which  sailed  buoyantly  back  towards  the  street.  He 
was  after  it  like  a  youth  of  twenty,  and  he  recaptured 
it.     But  when  he  reached  the  extremity  of  the  tunnel 


6o  BURIED   ALIVE. 

his  amazed  eyes  saw  nothing  but  a  great  cage  of  human 
animals  pressed  tightly  together  behind  bars.  There 
was  a  click,  and  the  whole  cage  sank  from  his  sight  into 
the  earth. 

He  felt  that  there  was  more  than  he  had  dreamt  of 
in  the  city  of  miracles.  In  a  couple  of  minutes  another 
cage  rose  into  the  tunnel  at  a  different  point,  vomited 
its  captives  and  descended  swiftly  again  with  Priam  and 
many  others,  and  threw  him  and  the  rest  out  into  a 
white  mine  consisting  of  numberless  galleries.  He  ran 
about  these  interminable  galleries  underneath  London, 
at  the  bidding  of  painted  hands,  for  a  considerable 
time,  and  occasionally  magic  trains  without  engines 
swept  across  his  vision.  But  he  could  not  find  even  the 
spirit  of  Mrs.  Alice  Challice  in  this  nether  world. 


THE  NEsr. 

On  letter-paper  headed  "Grand  Babylon  Hotel, 
London,"  he  was  writing  in  a  disguised  backward  hand, 
a  note  to  the  following  effect:  "Duncan  Farll,  Esq.  Sir, 
- — If  any  letters  or  telegrams  arrive  for  me  at  Sehvood 
Terrace,  be  good  enough  to  have  them  forwarded  to 
me  at  once  to  the  above  address.  —  Yours  truly, 
H.  Leek."  It  cost  him  something  to  sign  the  name  of 
the  dead  man;  but  he  instinctively  guessed  that  Dun- 


THE  NEST.  6  I 

can  Farll  might  be  a  sieve  which  (owing  to  its  legal- 
mindedness)  would  easily  get  clogged  up  even  by  a 
slight  suspicion.  Hence,  in  order  to  be  sure  of  receiv- 
ing a  possible  letter  or  telegram  from  Mrs.  Challice,  he 
must  openly  label  himself  as  Henry  Leek.  He  had  lost 
Mrs.  Challice;  there  was  no  address  on  her  letter;  he 
only  knew  that  she  lived  at  or  near  Putney,  and  the 
sole  hope  of  finding  her  again  lay  in  the  fact  that  she 
had  the  Selwood  Terrace  address.  He  wanted  to  find 
her  again;  he  desired  that  ardently,  if  merely  to  explain 
to  her  that  their  separation  was  due  to  a  sudden 
caprice  of  his  hat,  and  that  he  had  searched  for  her 
everywhere  in  the  mine,  anxiously,  desperately.  She 
would  surely  not  imagine  that  he  had  slipped  away 
from  her  on  purpose?  No!  And  yet,  if  incapable  of 
such  an  enormity,  why  had  she  not  waited  for  him  on 
one  of  the  platforms?  However,  he  hoped  for  the  best. 
The  best  was  a  telegram;  the  second-best  a  letter.  On 
receipt  of  which  he  would  fly  to  her  to  explain.  .  .  . 
And  besides,  he  wanted  to  see  her^ simply.  Her  an- 
swer to  his  suggestion  of  a  music-hall,  and  the  tone  of 
it,  had  impressed  him.  And  her  remark,  "I  do  feel  so 
sorry  for  you  all  these  years,"  had — well,  somewhat 
changed  his  whole  outlook  on  life.  Yes,  he  wanted  to 
see  her  in  order  to  satisfy  himself  that  he  had  her  re- 
spect. A  woman  impossible  socially,  a  woman  with 
strange   habits   and   tricks   of  manner  (no  doubt  there 


62  nURlED   AT,1VE. 

were  millions  such);  but  a  woman  whose  respect  one 
would  not  forfeit  without  a  struggle! 

He  had  been  pushed  to  an  extremity,  forced  to  act 
with  swiftness,  upon  losing  her.  And  he  had  done  the 
thing  that  comes  most  naturally  to  a  life-long  traveller. 
He  had  driven  to  the  best  hotel  in  the  town.  (He  had 
seen  in  a  flash  that  the  idea  of  inhabiting  any  private 
hotel  whatever  was  a  silly  idea.)  And  now  he  was  in 
a  large  bedroom  overlooking  the  Thames — a  chamber 
with  a  writing-desk,  a  sofa,  five  electric  lights,  two 
easy-chairs,  a  telei)hone,  electric  bells,  and  a  massive 
oak  door  with  a  lock  and  a  key  in  the  lock;  in  short, 
his  castle!  An  enterprise  of  some  daring  to  storm  the 
castle:  but  he  had  stormed  it.  He  had  registered 
under  the  name  of  Leek,  a  name  sufficiently  common 
not  to  excite  remark,  and  the  floor- valet  had  proved  to 
be  an  admirable  young  man.  He  trusted  to  the  floor- 
valet  and  to  the  telephone  for  avoiding  any  rough  con- 
tact with  the  world.  He  felt  comparatively  safe  now; 
the  entire  enormous  hotel  was  a  nest  for  his  shyness,  a 
conspiracy  to  keep  him  in  cotton-wool.  He  was  an 
autocratic  number,  absolute  ruler  over  Room  331,  and 
Avith  the  right  to  command  the  almost  limitless  resources 
of  the  Grand  Babylon  for  his  own  private  ends. 

As  he  sealed  the  envelope  he  touched  a  bell. 

The  valet  entered. 

"You've  got  the  evening  papers?"  asked  Priam  Farll. 


THE  NEST,  63 

"Yes,  sir."  The  valet  put  a  pile  of  papers  respect- 
fully on  the  desk. 

"All  of  them?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"Thanks.  Well,  it's  not  too  late  to  have  a  mes- 
senger, is  it?" 

"Oh  no,  sir."  ("'Too  late'  in  the  Grand  Babylon, 
oh  Czar!"  said  the  valet's  shocked  tone.) 

"Then  please  get  a  messenger  to  take  this  letter,  at 
once." 

"In  a  cab,  sir?" 

"Yes,  in  a  cab.  I  don't  know  whether  there  will 
be  an  answer.  He  will  see.  Then  let  him  call  at  the 
cloak-room  at  South  Kensington  Station  and  get  my 
luggage.     Here's  the  ticket." 

"Thank  you,  sir." 

"I  can  rely  on  you  to  see  that  he  goes  at  once?" 

"You  can,  sir,"  said  the  valet,  in  such  accents  as 
carry  absolute  conviction. 

"Thank  you.     That  will  do,  I  think." 

The  man  retired,  and  the  door  was  closed  by  an 
expert  in  closing  doors,  one  who  had  devoted  his  life  to 
the  perfection  of  detail  in  valetry. 


64  RURIED   ALIVE. 


FAIVIE. 

He  lay  on  the  sofa  at  the  foot  of  the  bed,  with  all 
illumination  extinguished  save  one  crimson-shaded  light 
immediately  above  him.  The  evening  papers — white, 
green,  rose,  cream,  and  yellow — shared  his  couch.  He 
was  about  to  glance  at  the  obituaries;  to  glance  at 
them  in  a  careless,  condescending  way,  just  to  see  the 
sort  of  thing  that  journalists  had  written  of  him.  He 
knew  the  value  of  obituaries;  he  had  often  smiled  at 
them.  He  knew  also  the  exceeding  fatuity  of  art 
criticism,  which  did  not  cause  him  even  to  smile,  being 
simply  a  bore.  He  recollected,  further,  that  he  was  not 
the  first  man  to  read  his  own  obituary;  the  adventure 
had  happened  to  others;  and  he  could  recall  how,  on 
his  having  heard  that  owing  to  an  error  it  had  hap- 
pened to  the  great  so-and-so,  he,  in  his  quality  of  philo- 
sopher, had  instantly  decided  what  frame  of  mind  the 
great  so-and-so  ought  to  have  assumed  for  the  perusal 
of  his  biography.  He  carefully  and  deliberately  adopted 
that  frame  of  mind  now.  He  thought  of  Marcus 
Aurelius  on  the  futility  of  fame;  he  remembered  his  life- 
long attitude  of  gentle,  tired  scorn  for  the  press;  he  re- 
flected with  wise  modesty  that  in  art  nothing  counts  but 
the  work  itself,   and  that  no  quantity  of  inept  chatter 


FAME.  65 

could  possibly  affect,  for  gocd  or  evil,  his  value,  such  as 
it  might  be,  to  the  world. 

Then  he  began  to  open  the  papers. 

The  first  glimpse  of  their  contents  made  him  jump. 
In  fact,  the  physical  result  of  it  was  quite  extra- 
ordinary. His  temperature  increased.  His  heart  be- 
came audible.  His  pulse  quickened.  And  there  was  a 
tingling  as  far  off  as  his  toes.  He  had  felt,  in  a  dim, 
unacknowledged  way,  that  he  must  be  a  pretty  great 
painter.  Of  course  his  prices  were  notorious.  And  he 
had  guessed,  though  vaguely,  that  he  was  the  object  of 
widespread  curiosity.  But  he  had  never  compared  him- 
self with  Titanic  figures  on  the  planet.  It  had  always 
seemed  to  him  that  his  renown  was  different  from  other 
renowns,  less — somehow  unreal  and  make-believe.  He 
had  never  imaginatively  grasped,  despite  prices  and 
public  inquisitiveness,  that  he  too  was  one  of  the  Titanic 
figures.  He  grasped  it  now.  The  aspect  of  the  papers 
brought  it  home  to  him  with  tremendous  force. 

Special  large  type!  Titles  stretching  across  two 
columns!  Black  borders  round  the  pages!  "Death  of 
England's  greatest  painter."  "Sudden  death  of  Priam 
Farll."  "Sad  death  of  a  great  genius."  "Puzzling  career 
prematurely  closed."  "Europe  is  mourning."  "Irre- 
parable loss  to  the  world's  art."  "It  is  with  the  most 
profound  regret."  "Our  readers  will  be  shocked." 
"The  news  will  come  as  a  personal  blow  to  every  lover 

Buried  Alive,  5 


66  BURIED   ALIVE. 

of  great  painting."  So  the  papers  went  on,  outvying 
each  other  in  enthusiastic  grief. 

He  ceased  to  be  careless  and  condescending  to 
them.  Tlie  skin  crept  along  his  spine.  There  he  lay, 
solitary,  under  the  crimson  glow,  locked  in  his  castle, 
human,  with  the  outward  semblance  of  a  man  like  other 
men,  and  yet  the  cities  of  Europe  were  weeping  for 
him.  He  heard  them  weeping.  Every  lover  of  great 
painting  was  under  a  sense  of  personal  bereavement. 
The  very  voice  of  the  world  was  hushed.  After  all,  it 
was  something  to  have  done  your  best;  after  all,  good 
stuff  was  appreciated  by  the  mass  of  the  race.  The 
phenomena  presented  by  the  evening  papers  was  cer- 
tainly prodigious,  and  prodigiously  affecting.  Mankind 
was  unpleasantly  stunned  by  the  report  of  his  decease. 
He  forgot  that  Mrs.  Challice,  for  instance,  had  perfectly 
succeeded  in  hiding  her  grief  for  the  irreparable  loss, 
and  that  her  questions  about  Priam  Farll  had  been 
almost  perfunctory.  He  forgot  that  he  had  witnessed 
absolutely  no  sign  of  overwhelming  sorrow,  or  of  any 
degree  of  sorrow,  in  the  thoroughfares  of  the  teeming 
capital,  and  that  the  hotels  did  not  resound  to  sob- 
bing. He  knew  only  that  all  Europe  was  in  mourn- 
ing! 

"I  suppose  I  was  rather  wonderful — am,  I  mean" — 
he  said  to  himself,  dazed  and  happy.  Yes,  happy. 
''The   fact  is,   I've   got  so  used  to  my  own  work  that 


FAIME.  67 

perhaps  I  don't  think  enough  of  it."     He  said  this  as 
modestly  as  he  could. 

There  was  no  question  now  of  casually  glancing  at 
the  obituaries.  He  could  not  miss  a  single  line,  a  single 
word.  He  even  regretted  that  the  details  of  his  life 
were  so  few  and  unimportant.  It  seemed  to  him  that 
it  was  the  business  of  the  journalists  to  have  known 
more,  to  have  displayed  more  enterprise  in  acquiring 
information.  Still,  the  tone  was  right.  The  fellows 
meant  well,  at  any  rate.  His  eyes  encountered  nothing 
but  praise.  Indeed  the  press  of  London  had  yielded 
itself  up  to  an  encomiastic  orgy.  His  modesty  tried  to 
say  that  this  was  slightly  overdone;  but  his  impartiality 
asked,  "Really,  what  could  they  say  against  me?"  As 
a  rule  unmitigated  praise  was  nauseous,  but  here  they 
were  undoubtedly  genuine,  the  fellows;  their  sentences 
rang  true! 

Never  in  his  life  had  he  been  so  satisfied  with  the 
scheme  of  the  universe!  He  was  nearly  consoled  for 
the  dissolution  of  Leek. 

When,  after  continued  reading,  he  came  across  a 
phrase  which  discreetly  insinuated,  apropos  of  the  police- 
man and  the  penguins,  that  capriciousness  in  the  choice 
of  subject  was  perhaps  a  pose  with  him,  the  accusation 
hurt. 

"Pose!"  he  inwardly  exclaimed.  "What  a  lie!  The 
man's  an  ass!" 

5* 


68  BURIED  ALIVE. 

And  he  resented  the  following  remark  whicli  con- 
cluded a  "special  memoir"  extremely  laudatory  in  matter 
and  manner,  by  an  expert  whose  books  he  had  always 
respected:  "However,  contemporary  judgments  are  in 
the  large  majority  of  cases  notoriously  wrong,  and  it 
behoves  us  to  remember  this  in  choosing  a  niche  for  our 
idol.  Time  alone  can  settle  the  ultimate  position  of 
Priam  Farll." 

Useless  for  his  modesty  to  whisper  to  him  that  con- 
temporary judgments  were  notoriously  wrong.  He  did 
not  like  it.  It  disturbed  him.  There  were  exceptions 
to  every  rule.  And  if  the  connoisseur  meant  anything 
at  all,  he  was  simply  stultifying  the  rest  of  the  article. 
Time  be  d d! 

He  had  come  nearly  to  the  last  line  of  the  last 
obituary  before  he  was  finally  ruffled.  Most  of  the 
sheets,  in  excusing  the  paucity  of  biographical  detail, 
had  remarked  that  Priam  Farll  was  utterly  unknown  to 
London  society,  of  a  retiring  disposition,  hating  publicity, 
a  recluse,  etc.  The  word  "recluse"  grated  on  his  sensi- 
tiveness a  little;  but  when  the  least  important  of  the 
evening  papers  roundly  asserted  it  to  be  notorious  that 
he  was  of  extremely  eccentric  habits,  he  grew  secretly 
furious.  Neither  his  modesty  nor  his  philosophy  was 
influential  enough  to  restore  him  to  complete  calm. 

Eccentric!    He!    What  next?    Eccentric,  indeed! 

Now,  what  conceivable  justification ? 


THE  RULING   CLASSES,  69 


THE  RULING   CLASSES. 

Between  a  quarter-past  and  half-past  eleven  he  was 
seated  alone  at  a  small  table  in  the  restaurant  of  the 
Grand  Babylon.  He  had  had  no  news  of  Mrs.  Challice; 
she  had  not  instantly  telegraphed  to  Selwood  Terrace, 
as  he  had  wildly  hoped.  But  in  the  boxes  of  Henry 
Leek,  safely  retrieved  by  the  messenger  from  South 
Kensington  Station,  he  had  discovered  one  of  his  old 
dress- suits,  not  too  old,  and  this  dress-suit  he  had 
donned.  The  desire  to  move  about  unknown  in  the 
well-clad  world,  the  world  of  the  frequenters  of  costly 
hotels,  the  world  to  which  he  was  accustomed,  had  over- 
taken him.  Moreover,  he  felt  hungry.  Hence  he  had 
descended  to  the  famous  restaurant,  whose  wide  win- 
dows were  flung  open  to  the  illuminated  majesty  of  the 
Thames  Embankment.  The  pale  cream  room  was  nearly 
full  of  expensive  women,  and  expending  men,  and 
silver-chained  waiters  whose  skilled,  noiseless,  inhuman 
attentions  were  remunerated  at  the  rate  of  about  four- 
pence  a  minute.  Music,  the  midnight  food  of  love, 
floated  scarce  heard  through  the  tinted  atmosphere.  It 
was  the  best  imitation  of  Roman  luxury  that  London 
could  offer,  and  after  Selwood  Terrace  and  the  rackety 
palace  of  no  gratuities,  Priam  Farll  enjoyed  it  as  one 
enjoys  home  after  strange  climes. 


70  BURIED   ALIVE. 

Next  to  his  table  was  an  empty  table,  set  for  two, 
to  which  were  presently  conducted,  with  due  state,  a 
young  man,  and  a  magnificent  woman  whose  youth  was 
slipping  off  her  polished  shoulders  like  a  cloak.  Priam 
Farll  then  overheard  the  following  conversation: — 

Man.    Well,  what  are  you  going  to  have? 

Woman.  But  look  here,  little  Charlie,  you  can't  pos- 
sibly afford  to  pay  for  this! 

Man.  Never  said  I  could.  It's  the  paper  that  pays. 
So  go  ahead. 

Woman.    Is  Lord  Nasing  so  keen  as  all  that? 

Man.  It  isn't  Lord  Nasing.  It's  our  brand  new 
editor  specially  imported  from  Chicago. 

Woman.    Will  he  last? 

Man.  He'll  last  a  hundred  nights,  say  as  long  as 
the  run  of  your  piece.  Then  he'll  get  six  months'  screw 
and  the  boot. 

Woman.    How  much  is  six  months'  screw? 

Man.    Three  thousand. 

Woman.    Well,  I  can  hardly  earn  that  myself 

Man.  Neither  can  I.  But  then  you  see  we  weren't 
born  in  Chicago. 

Woman.  I've  been  offered  a  thousand  dollars  a  week 
to  go  there,  anyhow. 

Man.  Why  didn't  you  tell  me  that  for  the  inter- 
view? I've  spent  two  entire  entr'actes  in  trying  to  get 
something  interesting  out  of  you,   and  there  you  go  and 


THE  RULING  CLASSES.  7^ 

keep  a  thing  like  that  up  your  sleeve.  It's  not  fair  to 
an  old  and  faithful  admirer.  I  shall  stick  it  in.  Poidet 
chasseur? 

Woman.  Oh  no!  Couldn't  dream  of  it.  Didn't 
you  know  I  was  dieting?  Nothing  saucy.  No  sugar. 
No  bread.  No  tea.  Thanks  to  that  I've  lost  nearly 
a  stone  in  six  months.  You  know  I  was  getting 
enormous. 

Man.    Let  me  put  that  in,  eh? 
Woman.    Just  try,  and  see  what  happens  to  you! 
Man.    Well,   shall   we   say   a   lettuce   salad,    and   a 
Perrier  and  soda?     I'm  dieting  too. 

Waiter.  Lettuce  salad,  and  a  Perrier  and  soda? 
Yes,  sir. 

Woman.    You  aren't  very  gay. 

Man.  Gay!  You  don't  know  all  the  yearnings  of 
my  soul.  Don't  imagine  that  because  I'm  a  special  of 
the  Record  I  haven't  got  a  soul. 

Woman.  I  suppose  you've  been  reading  that  book, 
Omar  Khayyam,  that  everyone's  talking  about.  Isn't 
that  what  it's  called? 

Man.  Has  Omar  Khayyam  reached  the  theatrical 
world?  Well,  there's  no  doubt  the  earth  does  move, 
after  all. 

Woman.  A  little  more  soda,  please.  And  just  a 
trifle  less  impudence.  What  book  ought  one  to  be  read- 
ing, then? 


7  2  BURIED  ALIVE. 

I 

Man.  Socialism's  the  thing  just  now.  Read  Wells 
on  Socialism.  It'll  be  all  over  the  theatrical  world  in  a 
few  years'  time. 

Woman.  No  fear!  I  can't  bear  Wells.  He's  always 
stirring  up  the  dregs.  I  don't  mind  froth,  but  I  do 
draw  the  line  at  dregs.  What's  the  band  playing?  What 
have  you  been  doing  to-day?  Is  this  lettuce?  No,  no! 
No  bread.     Didn't  you  hear  me  tell  you? 

Man.     I've  been  busy  with  the  Priam  Farll  affair. 

Woman,    Priam  Farll? 

Man.    Yes.     Painter.      You  know. 

Woman.  Oh  yes.  Ilim!  I  saw  it  on  the  posters. 
He's  dead,  it  seems.     Anything  mysterious? 

Man.  You  bet!  Very  odd!  Frightfully  rich,  you 
know!  Yet  he  died  in  a  wretched  hovel  of  a  place 
down  off  the  Fulham  Road.  And  his  valet's  disappeared. 
We  had  the  first  news  of  the  death,  through  our  ar- 
rangement with  all  the  registrars'  clerks  in  London.  By- 
the-bye,  don't  give  that  away — it's  our  speciality.  Nas- 
ing  sent  me  off  at  once  to  write  up  the  story. 

Woman.    Story? 

Man.  The  particulars.  We  always  call  it  a  story 
in  Fleet  Street. 

Woman.  What  a  good  name!  Well,  did  you  find 
out  anything  interesting? 

Man.  Not  very  much.  I  saw  his  cousin,  Duncan 
Farll,    a  money-lending   lawyer   in  Clement's  Lane — he 


THE  RULING   CLASSES,  73 

only  heard  of  it  because  we  telephoned  to  him.  But 
the  fellow  would  scarcely  tell  me  anything  at  all. 

Woman.  Really!  I  do  hope  there's  something  ter- 
rible. 

Man.    Why? 

Woman.  So  that  I  can  go  to  the  inquest  or  the 
police  court  or  whatever  it  is.  That's  why  I  always 
keep  friendly  with  magistrates.  It's  so  frightfully  thrill- 
ing, sitting  on  the  bench  with  them. 

Man.  There  won't  be  any  inquest.  But  there's 
something  queer  in  it.  You  see,  Priam  Farll  was  never 
in  England.  Always  abroad;  at  those  foreign  hotels, 
wandering  up  and  down. 

Woman  {after  a  pause).    I  know. 

Man.    What  do  you  know? 

Woman.    Will  you  promise  not  to  chatter? 

Man.    Yes. 

Woman.  I  met  him  once  at  an  hotel  at  Ostend. 
He — well,  he  wanted  most  tremendously  to  paint  my 
portrait.     But  I  wouldn't  let  him. 

Man.    AVhy  not? 

Woman.  If  you  knew  what  sort  of  man  he  was  you 
wouldn't  ask. 

Man.  Oh!  But  look  here,  I  say!  You  must  let 
me  use  that  in  my  story.     Tell  me  all  about  it. 

Woman.    Not  for  worlds. 

Man.    He — he  made  up  to  you? 


74  BURIED   ALIVE. 

Woman.    Rather! 

Priam  Farll  {lo  himself).  What  a  barefaced  lie! 
Never  was  at  Ostend  in  my  hfe. 

Man.  Can't  I  use  it  if  I  don't  print  your  name — • 
just  say,  a  distinguished  actress. 

Woman.  Oh  yes,  you  can  do  ihat.  You  might  say, 
of  the  musical  comedy  stage. 

Man.  I  will.  I'll  run  something  together.  Trust 
me.     Thanks  awfully. 

At  this  point  a  young  and  emaciated  priest  passed 
up  the  room. 

Woman.  Oh!  Father  Luke,  is  that  you?  Do  come 
and  sit  here  and  be  nice.  This  is  Father  Luke  Widgery 
— Mr.  Docksey,  of  the  Record. 

Man.    Delighted. 

Priest.    Delighted. 

Woman.  Now,  Father  Luke,  Pve  just  goi  to  come 
to  your  sermon  to-morrow.     What's  it  about? 

Priest.    Modern  vice. 

Woman.  How  charming!  I  read  the  last  one — it 
was  lovely. 

Priest.  Unless  you  have  a  ticket  you'll  never  be 
able  to  get  in. 

Woman.  But  I  must  get  in.  Pll  come  to  the  vestry 
door,  if  there  is  a  vestry  door  at  St.  Bede's. 

Priest.  It's  impossible.  You've  no  idea  of  the 
crush.     And  I've  no  favourites. 


THE  RULING   CLASSES.  75 

Woman.    Oh  yes,  you  have!     You  have  me. 

Priest.  In  my  church,  fashionable  women  must  take 
their  chance  with  the  rest. 

Woman.    How  horrid  you  are! 

Priest.  Perhaps.  I  may  tell  you,  Miss  Cohenson, 
that  I've  seen  two  duchesses  standing  at  the  back  of  the 
aisle  of  St.  Bede's,  and  glad  to  be  there. 

Woman.  But  /  sha'n't  flatter  you  by  standing  at 
the  back  of  your  aisle,  and  you  needn't  think  it.  Haven't 
I  given  you  a  box  before  now? 

Priest.  I  only  accepted  the  box  as  a  matter  of 
duty;  it  is  part  of  my  duty  to  go  everywhere. 

Man.  Come  with  me.  Miss  Cohenson.  I've  got  two 
tickets  for  the  Record. 

Woman.    Oh,  so  you  do  send  seats  to  the  press? 

Priest.  The  press  is  different.  Waiter,  bring  me 
half  a  bottle  of  Heidsieck. 

Waiter.    Half  a  bottle  of  Heidsieck  ?     Yes,  sir. 

Woman.  Heidsieck.  Well,  I  like  that.  We're 
dieting. 

Priest.  /  don't  like  Heidsieck.  But  I'm  dieting 
too.  It's  my  doctor's  orders.  Every  night  before  re- 
tiring. It  appears  that  my  system  needs  it.  Maria 
Lady  Rowndell  insists  on  giving  me  a  hundred  a  year 
to  pay  for  it.  It  is  her  own  beautiful  way  of  helping 
the  good  cause.  Ice,  please,  waiter.  I've  just  been 
seeing  her  to-night.     She's  staying  here   for  the  season. 


76  BURIED  ALIVE. 

Saves  her  a  lot  of  trouble.  She's  very  much  cut  up 
about  the  death  of  Priam  Farll,  poor  thing!  So  artistic, 
you  know!  The  late  Lord  Rowndell  had  what  is  sup- 
posed to  be  the  finest  lot  of  Farlls  in  England. 

Man.  Did  you  ever  meet  Priam  Farll,  Father 
Luke? 

Priest.  Never.  I  understand  he  was  most  eccentric, 
I  hate  eccentricity.  I  once  wrote  to  him  to  ask  him  if 
he  would  paint  a  Holy  Family  for  St.  Bede's. 

Man.    And  what  did  he  reply? 

Priest.  He  didn't  reply.  Considering  that  he  wasn't 
even  an  R.A.,  I  don't  think  that  it  was  quite  nice  of 
him.  However,  Maria  Lady  Rowndell  insists  that  he 
must  be  buried  in  Westminster  Abbey.  She  asked  me 
what  I  could  do. 

Woman.  Buried  in  Westminster  Abbey !  I'd  no  idea 
he  was  so  big  as  all  that!     Gracious! 

Priest.  I  have  the  greatest  confidence  in  Maria 
Lady  Rowndell's  taste,  and  certainly  I  bear  no  grudge. 
I  may  be  able  to  arrange  something.  My  uncle  the 
Dean 

Man.  Pardon  me.  I  always  understood  that  since 
you  left  the  Church 

Priest.  Since  I  joined  the  Church,  you  mean.  There 
is  but  one. 

Man.    Church  of  England,  I  meant. 

Priest.    Ah! 


THE  RULING   CLASSES.  77 

Man.  Since  you  left  the  Church  of  England,  there 
had  been  a  breach  between  the  Dean  and  yourself. 

Priest.  Merely  religious.  Besides  my  sister  is  the 
Dean's  favourite  niece.  And  I  am  her  favourite  brother. 
My  sister  takes  much  interest  in  art.  She  has  just 
painted  a  really  exquisite  tea-cosy  for  me.  Of  course 
the  Dean  ultimately  settles  these  questions  of  national 
funerals.     Hence  .  .  . 

At  this  point  the  invisible  orchestra  began  to  play 
"God  save  the  King." 

Woman.    Oh!     What  a  bore! 

Then  nearly  all  the  lights  were  extinguished. 

Waiter.    Please,  gentlemen!     Gentlemen,  please! 

Priest.  You  quite  understand,  Mr.  Docksey,  that  I 
merely  gave  these  family  details  in  order  to  substantiate 
my  statement  that  I  may  be  able  to  arrange  something. 
By  the  way,  if  you  would  care  to  have  a  typescript  of 
my  sermon  to-morrow  for  the  Record,  you  can  have  one 
by  applying  at  the  vestry. 

Waiter.    Please,  gentlemen! 

Man.  So  good  of  you.  As  regards  the  burial  in 
Westminster  Abbey,  I  think  that  the  Record  will  support 
the  project.     I  say  I  tliink. 

Priest.    Maria  Lady  Rowndell  will  be  grateful. 

Five-sixths  of  the  remaining  lights  went  out,  and  the 
entire  company  followed  tliem.  In  the  foyer  there  was 
a  prodigious  crush  of  opera  cloaks,  silk  hats,  and  cigars, 


78  BURIED   ALIVE. 

all  jostling  together.  News  arrived  from  the  Strand  that 
the  weather  had  turned  to  rain,  and  all  the  intellect  of 
the  Grand  Babylon  was  centred  upon  the  British  climate, 
exactly  as  if  the  British  climate  had  been  the  latest 
discovery  of  science.  As  the  doors  swung  to  and  fro, 
the  stridency  of  whistles,  the  throbbing  of  motor-cars, 
and  the  hoarse  cries  of  inhabitants  of  box  seats  mingled 
strangely  with  the  delicate  babble  of  the  interior.  Then, 
lo!  as  by  magic,  the  foyer  was  empty  save  for  the 
denizens  of  the  hotel  who  could  produce  evidence  of 
identity.  It  had  been  proved  to  demonstration,  for  the 
sixth  time  that  week,  that  in  the  metropolis  of  the 
greatest  of  Empires  there  is  not  one  law  for  the  rich 
and  another  for  the  poor. 

Deeply  affected  by  what  he  had  overheard,  Priam 
Farll  rose  in  a  lift  and  sought  his  bed.  He  perceived 
clearly  that  he  had  been  among  the  governing  classes 
of  the  realm. 


A  SCOOP,  79 


CHAPTER    IV. 
A  SCOOP. 

Within  less  than  twelve  hours  after  that  conversa- 
tion between  members  of  the  governing  classes  at  the 
Grand  Babylon  Hotel,  Priam  Farll  heard  the  first  deep- 
throated  echoes  of  the  voice  of  England  on  the  question 
of  his  funeral.  The  voice  of  England  issued  on  this 
occasion  through  the  mouth  of  the  Sunday  News,  a 
newspaper  which  belonged  to  Lord  Nasing,  the  pro- 
prietor of  the  Daily  Record.  There  was  a  column  in 
the  Sunday  Neivs,  partly  concerning  the  meeting  of 
Priam  Farll  and  a  celebrated  star  of  the  musical  comedy 
stage  at  Ostend.  There  was  also  a  leading  article,  in 
which  it  was  made  perfectly  clear  that  England  would 
stand  ashamed  among  the  nations,  if  she  did  not  inter 
her  greatest  painter  in  Westminster  Abbey.  Only  the 
article,  instead  of  saying  Westminster  Abbey,  said 
National  Valhalla.  It  seemed  to  make  a  point  of  not 
mentioning  Westminster  Abbey  by  name,  as  though 
Westminster  Abbey  had  been  something  not  quite  men- 
tionable,  such  as  a  pair  of  trousers.  The  article  ended 
with   the   word   "basilica,"   and   by   the   time  you  had 


8o  BURIED   ALIVE. 

reached  this  majestic  substantive,  you  felt  indeed,  with 
the  Stmday  News,  that  a  National  Valhalla  without  the 
remains  of  a  Priam  Farll  inside  it,  would  be  shocking, 
if  not  inconceivable. 

Priam  Farll  was  extremely  disturbed. 

On  Monday  morning  the  Daily  Record  came  nobly 
to  the  support  of  the  Sunday  Neivs.  It  had  evidently 
spent  its  Sunday  in  collecting  the  opinions  of  a  number 
of  famous  men — including  three  M.P.'s,  a  banker,  a 
Colonial  premier,  a  K.C.,  a  cricketer,  and  the  President 
of  the  Royal  Academy  —  as  to  whether  the  National 
Valhalla  was  or  was  not  a  suitable  place  for  the  repose 
of  the  remains  of  Priam  Farll;  and  the  unanimous  reply 
was  in  the  affirmative.  Other  newspapers  expressed 
the  same  view.  But  there  were  opponents  of  the  scheme. 
Some  organs  coldly  inquired  what  Priam  Farll  had  done 
for  England,  and  particularly  for  the  higher  life  of 
England.  He  had  not  been  a  moral  painter  like  Hogarth 
or  Sir  Noel  Paton,  nor  a  worshipper  of  classic  legend 
and  beauty  like  the  unique  Leighton.  He  had  openly 
scorned  England.  He  had  never  lived  in  England. 
He  had  avoided  the  Royal  Academy,  honouring  every 
country  save  his  own.  And  was  he  such  a  great  painter, 
after  all?  Was  he  anything  but  a  clever  dauber  whose 
work  had  been  forced  into  general  admiration  by  the 
efforts  of  a  small  clique  of  eccentric  admirers?  Far  be 
it  from  them,   the  organs,   to  decry   a   dead  man,   but 


A  SCOOP.  81 

the  National  Valhalla  was   the  National  Valhalla.  .  .  . 
And  so  on. 

The  penny  evening  papers  were  pro-Farll,  one  of 
them  furiously  so.  You  gathered  that  if  Priam  Farll 
was  not  buried  in  Westminster  Abbey  the  penny  even- 
ing papers  would,  from  mere  disgust,  wipe  their  boots 
on  Dover  cliffs  and  quit  England  eternally  for  some 
land  where  art  was  understood.  You  gathered,  by 
nightfall,  that  Fleet  Street  must  be  a  scene  of  carnage, 
full  of  enthusiasts  cutting  each  other's  throats  for  the 
sake  of  the  honour  of  art.  However,  no  abnormal 
phenomenon  was  superficially  observable  in  Fleet  Street; 
nor  was  martial  law  proclaimed  at  the  Arts  Club  in 
Dover  Street.  London  was  impassioned  by  the  ques- 
tion of  Farll's  funeral;  a  few  hours  would  decide  if 
England  was  to  be  shamed  among  the  nations:  and  yet 
the  town  seemed  to  pursue  its  jog-trot  way  exactly  as 
usual.  The  Gaiety  Theatre  performed  its  celebrated 
nightly  musical  comedy,  "House  Full;"  and  at  Queen's 
Hall  quite  a  large  audience  was  collected  to  listen  to 
a  violinist  aged  twelve,  who  played  like  a  man,  though 
a  little  one,  and  whose  services  had  been  bought  for 
seven  years  by  a  limited  company. 

The  next  morning  the  controversy  was  settled  by 
one  of  the  Daily  Record's  characteristic  "scoops."  In 
the  nature  of  the  case,  such  controversies,  if  they  are 
not  settled  quickly,  settle  themselves  quickly;  they  can- 

Buried  Alive,  " 


82  BURIED   ALIVE. 

not  be  prolonged.  Rut  it  was  the  Daily  Record  that 
settled  this  one.  The  Daily  Record  came  out  with  a 
copy  of  the  will  of  Priam  Farll,  in  which,  after  leaving 
a  pound  a  week  for  life  to  his  valet,  Henry  Leek,  Priam 
Farll  bequeathed  the  remainder  of  his  fortune  to  the 
nation  for  the  building  and  up-keep  of  a  Gallery  of 
Great  Masters.  Priam  Farll's  own  collection  of  great 
masters,  gradually  made  by  him  in  that  inexpensive 
manner  which  is  possible  only  to  the  finest  connoisseurs, 
was  to  form  the  nucleus  of  the  Gallery.  It  comprised, 
said  the  Record,  several  Rembrandts,  a  Velasquez,  six 
Vermeers,  a  Giorgione,  a  Turner,  a  Charles,  two  Cromes, 
a  Holbein.  (After  Charles  the  Record  put  a  note  of 
interrogation,  itself  being  uncertain  of  the  name.)  The 
pictures  were  in  Paris — had  been  for  many  years.  The 
leading  idea  of  the  Gallery  was  that  nothing  not  ab- 
solutely first-class  should  be  admitted  to  it.  The  testator 
attached  two  conditions  to  the  bequest.  One  was  that 
his  own  name  should  be  inscribed  nowhere  in  the  build- 
ing, and  the  other  was  that  none  of  his  own  pictures 
should  be  admitted  to  the.  gallery.  Was  not  this 
sublime?  Was  not  this  true'  British  pride?  Was  not 
this  magnificently  unlike  the  ordinary  benefactor  of  his 
country?  The  Record  was  in  , a' /position  to  assert  that 
Priam  Farll's  estate  would  amount  to  about  a  hundred 
and  forty  thousand  pounds,  in  addition  to  the  value  of 
the  pictures.     After  that,  was  anybody  going  to  argue 


A   SCOOP.  b^ 

that  he  ought  not  to  be  buried  in  the  National  Valhalla, 
a  philanthropist  so  royal  and  so  proudly  meek? 

The  opposition  gave  up. 

Priam  Farll  grew  more  and  more  disturbed  in  his 
fortress  at  the  Grand  Babylon  Hotel.  He  perfectly  re- 
membered making  the  will.  He  had  made  it  about 
seventeen  years  before,  after  some  champagne  in  Venice, 
in  an  hour  of  anger  against  some  English  criticisms  of 
his  work.  Yes,  English  criticisms!  It  was  his  vanity 
that  had  prompted  him  to  reply  in  that  manner.  More- 
over, he  was  quite  young  then.  He  remembered  the 
youthful  glee  with  which  he  had  appointed  his  next-of- 
kin,  whoever  they  might  be,  executors  and  trustees  of 
the  will.  He  remembered  his  cruel  joy  in  picturing 
their  disgust  at  being  compelled  to  carry  out  the  terms 
of  such  a  will.  Often,  since,  he  had  meant  to  destroy 
the  will;  but  carelessly  he  had  always  omitted  to  do  so. 
And  his  collection  and  his  fortune  had  continued  to  in- 
crease regularly  and  mightily,  and  now — well,  there  the 
thing  was!  Duncan  Farll  had  found  the  will.  And 
Duncan  Farll  would  be  the  executor  and  trustee  of  that 
melodramatic  testament. 

He  could  not  help  smiling,  serious  as  the  situation 
was. 

During  that  day  the  thing  was  settled;  the  authorities 
spoke;  the  word  went  forth.  Priam  Farll  was  to  be 
buried   in  \Vestminstcr  Abbey   on   the  Thursday.     The 


84  BURIED  AT.m:. 

dignity  of  England  among  artistic  nations  had  been 
saved,  partly  by  the  heroic  efforts  of  the  Daily  Record, 
and  partly  by  the  will,  which  proved  that  after  all 
Priam  Farll  had  had  the  highest  interests  of  his  country 
at  heart. 


COWARDICE. 

On  the  night  between  Tuesday  and  Wednesday 
Priam  Farll  had  not  a  moment  of  sleep.  Whether  it 
was  the  deep-throated  voice  of  England  that  had  spoken, 
or  merely  the  voice  of  the  Dean's  favourite  niece- — so 
skilled  in  painting  tea-cosies — the  affair  was  excessively 
serious.  For  the  nation  was  preparing  to  inter  in  the 
National  Valhalla  the  remains  of  just  Henry  Leek! 
Priam's  mind  had  often  a  sardonic  turn;  he  was  as- 
suredly capable  of  strange  caprices:  but  even  he  could 
not  permit  an  error  so  gigantic  to  continue.  The  matter 
must  be  rectified,  and  instantly!  And  he  alone  could 
rectify  it.  The  strain  on  his  shyness  would  be  awful, 
would  be  scarcely  endurable.  Nevertheless,  he  must 
act.  Quite  apart  from  other  considerations,  there  was 
the  consideration  of  that  hundred  and  forty  thousand 
pounds,  which  was  his,  and  which  he  had  not  the 
slightest  desire  to  leave  to  the  British  nation.  And  as 
for  giving  his  beloved  pictures  to  the  race  which  adored 


COWARDICE.  85 

Landseer,  Edwin  Long,  and  Leighton — the  idea  nauseated 
him. 

He  must  go  and  see  Duncan  Farll!  And  explain! 
Yes,  explain  that  he  was  not  dead. 

Then  he  had  a  vision  of  Duncan  Farll's  hard,  stupid 
face,  and  impenetrable  steel  head;  and  of  himself  being 
kicked  out  of  the  house,  or  delivered  over  to  a  police- 
man, or  in  some  subtler  way  unimaginably  insulted. 
Could  he  confront  Duncan  Farll?  Was  a  hundred  and 
forty  thousand  pounds  and  the  dignity  of  the  British 
nation  worth  the  bearding  of  Duncan  Farll?  No!  His 
distaste  for  Duncan  Farll  amounted  to  more  than  a 
hundred  and  forty  millions  of  pounds  and  the  dignity 
of  whole  planets.  He  felt  that  he  could  never  bring 
himself  to  meet  Duncan  Farll.  Why,  Duncan  might 
shove  him  into  a  lunatic  asylum,  might  .  .  .! 

Still,  he  must  act. 

Then  it  was  that  occurred  to  him  the  brilliant  notion 
of  making  a  clean  breast  of  it  to  the  Dean.  He  had 
not  the  pleasure  of  the  Dean's  personal  acquaintance. 
The  Dean  was  an  abstraction;  certainly  much  more  ab- 
stract than  Priam  Farll.  He  thought  he  could  meet  the 
Dean.  A  terrific  enterprise,  but  he  must  accomplish  it! 
After  all,  a  Dean — what  was  it?  Nothing  but  a  man 
with  a  funny  hat!  And  was  not  he  himself  Priam  Farll, 
the  authentic  Priam  Farll,  vastly  greater  than  any  Dean? 

He  told  the  valet  to  buy  black  gloves,  and  a  silk 


86  BURIF.D    ALIVE. 

hat,  sized  seven  and  a  quarter,  and  to  bring  up  a  copy 
of  W/io's  Who.  He  hoped  the  valet  would  be  dilatory 
in  executing  these  commands.  But  the  valet  seemed  to 
fulfil  them  by  magic.  Time  flew  so  f:ist  that  (in  a  way 
of  speaking)  you  could  hardly  see  the  fingers  as  they 
whirled  round  the  clock.  And  almost  before  he  knew 
where  he  was,  two  commissionaires  were  helping  him 
into  an  auto-cab,  and  the  terrific  enterprise  had  begun. 
The  auto-cab  would  easily  have  won  the  race  for  the 
Gordon  Bennett  Cup.  It  was  of  about  two  hundred  h.p., 
and  it  arrived  in  Dean's  Yard  in  less  time  than  a  fluent 
speaker  would  take  to  say  Jack  Robinson.  The  rapidity 
of  its  flight  was  simply  incredible. 

"I'll  keep  you,"  Priam  Farll  was  going  to  say,  as  he 
descended,  but  he  thought  it  would  be  more  final  to 
dismiss  the  machine;  so  he  dismissed  it. 

He  rang  the  bell  with  frantic  haste,  lest  he  should 
run  away  ere  he  had  rung  it.  And  then  his  heart  went 
thumping,  and  the  perspiration  damped  the  lovely  lining 
of  his  new  hat;  and  his  legs  trembled,  literally! 

He  was  in  hell  on  the  Dean's  door-step. 

The  door  was  opened  by  a  man  in  livery  of  pre- 
latical  black,  who  eyed  him  inimically. 

"Er "  stammered  Priam  Farll,   utterly  flustered 

and  craven.     "Is  this  Mr.  Parker's?" 

Now  Parker  was  not  the  Dean's  name,  and  Priam 


IN  THE  VALHALLA.  by 

knew   that   it   was   not.      Parker    was   merely   the   first 
name  that  had  come  into  Priam's  cowardly  head. 

"No,  it  isn't,"  said  the  flunkey  with  censorious  hps. 
"It's  the  Dean's." 

"Oh,  I  beg  pardon,"  said  Priam  Farll.  "I  thought 
it  was  Mr.  Parker's." 

And  he  departed. 

Between  the  ringing  of  the  bell  and  the  flunkey's 
appearance,  he  had  clearly  seen  what  he  was  capable, 
and  what  he  was  incapable,  of  doing.  And  the  cor- 
rection of  England's  error  was  among  his  incapacities. 
He  could  not  face  the  Dean.  He  could  not  face  any- 
one. He  was  a  poltroon  in  all  these  things;  a  poltroon. 
No  use  arguing!     He  could  not  do  it. 

"I  thought  it  was  Mr.  Parker's!"  Good  heavens! 
To  what  depths  can  a  great  artist  fall. 

That  evening  he  received  a  cold  letter  from  Duncan 
Farll,  with  a  nave-ticket  for  the  funeral.  Duncan  Farll 
did  not  venture  to  be  sure  that  Mr.  Henry  Leek  would 
think  proper  to  attend  his  master's  interment;  but  he 
enclosed  a  ticket.  He  also  stated  that  the  pound  a 
week  would  be  paid  to  him  in  due  course.  Lastly  he 
stated  that  several  newspaper  representatives  had  de- 
manded Mr.  Henry  Leek's  address,  but  he  had  not 
thought  fit  to  gratify  this  curiosity. 

Priam  was  glad  of  that. 


88  BURIED  ALIVE. 

"Well,  I'm  dashed!"  he  reflected,  handling  the  ticket 
for  the  nave. 

There  it  was,  large,  glossy,  real  as  life. 


IN  THE  VALHATXA. 

In  the  vast  nave  there  were  relatively  few  people — 
that  is  to  say,  a  few  hundreds,  who  had  sufficient  room 
to  move  easily  to  and  fro  under  the  eyes  of  officials. 
Priam  Farll  had  been  admitted  through  the  cloisters, 
according  to  the  direction  printed  on  the  ticket.  In  his 
nervous  fancy,  he  imagined  that  everybody  must  be 
gazing  at  him  suspiciously,  but  the  fact  was  that  he 
occupied  the  attention  of  no  one  at  all.  He  was  with 
the  unprivileged,  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  massive  screen 
which  separated  the  nave  from  the  packed  choir  and 
transepts,  and  the  unprivileged  are  never  interested  in 
themselves;  it  is  the  privileged  who  interest  them.  The 
organ  was  wafting  a  melody  of  Purcell  to  the  furthest 
limits  of  the  Abbey.  Round  a  roped  space  a  few  ec- 
clesiastical uniforms  kept  watch  over  the  ground  that 
would  be  the  tomb.  The  sunlight  of  noon  beat  and 
quivered  in  long  lances  through  crimson  and  blue 
windows.  Then  the  functionaries  began  to  form  an 
aisle  among  the  spectators,  and  emotion  grew  tenser. 
The  organ  was  silent  for  a  moment,  and  when  it  re- 
commenced  its    song   the   song  was   the    supreme    ex- 


IN  THE  VALHALLA.  89 

pression  of  human  grief,  the  dirge  of  Chopin,  wrapping 
the  whole  cathedral  in  heavy  folds  of  sorrow.  And  as 
that  appeal  expired  in  the  pulsating  air,  the  fresh  voices 
of  little  boys,  sweeter  even  than  grief,  rose  in  the 
distance. 

It  was  at  this  point  that  Priam  Farll  descried  Lady 
Sophia  Entwistle,  a  tall,  veiled  figure,  in  full  mourning. 
She  had  come  among  the  comparatively  unprivileged 
to  his  funeral.  Doubtless  influence  such  as  hers  could 
have  obtained  her  a  seat  in  the  transept,  but  she  had 
preferred  the  secluded  humility  of  the  nave.  She  had 
come  from  Paris  for  his  funeral.  She  was  weeping  for 
her  affianced.  She  stood  there,  actually  within  ten 
yards  of  him.  She  had  not  caught  sight  of  him,  but 
she  might  do  so  at  any  moment,  and  she  was  slowly 
approaching  the  spot  where  he  trembled. 

He  fled,  with  nothing  in  his  heart  but  resentment 
against  her.  She  had  not  proposed  to  him;  he  had 
proposed  to  her.  She  had  not  thrown  him  aside;  he 
had  thrown  her  aside.  He  was  not  one  of  her  mis- 
takes; she  was  one  of  his  mistakes.  Not  she,  but  he, 
had  been  capricious,  impulsive,  hasty.  Yet  he  hated 
her.  He  genuinely  thought  she  had  sinned  against  him, 
and  that  she  ought  to  be  exterminated.  He  condemned 
her  for  all  manner  of  things  as  to  which  she  had  had 
no  choice;  for  instance,  the  irregularity  of  her  teeth,  and 
the  hollow  under  her  chin,   and  the  little  tricks  of  de- 


go  BURTED  ALIVE. 

poitment  which  are  always  developed  by  a  spinster  as 
she  reaches  forty.  He  fled  in  terror  of  her.  If  she 
should  have  a  glimpse  of  him,  and  should  recognise 
him,  the  consequence  would  be  absolutely  disastrous — 
disastrous  in  every  vv^ay;  and  a  period  of  publicity  would 
dawn  for  him  such  as  he  could  not  possibly  contem- 
plate either  in  cold  blood  or  warm.  He  fled  blindly, 
insinuating  himself  through  the  crowd,  until  he  reached 
a  grille  in  which  was  a  gate,  ajar.  His  strange  stare 
must  have  affrighted  the  guardian  of  the  gate,  for  the 
robed  fellow  stood  away,  and  Priam  passed  within  the 
grille,  where  were  winding  steps,  which  he  mounted. 
Up  the  steps  ran  coils  of  fire-hose.  He  heard  the  click 
of  the  gate  as  the  attendant  shut  it,  and  he  was  thank- 
ful for  an  escape.  The  steps  led  to  the  organ-loft, 
perched  on  the  top  of  the  massive  screen.  The  organist 
was  seated  behind  a  half-drawn  curtain,  under  shaded 
electric  lights,  and  on  the  ample  platform  whose  parapet 
overlooked  the  choir  were  two  young  men  who  whispered 
with  the  organist.  None  of  the  three  even  glanced  at 
Priam.  Priam  sat  down  on  a  Windsor  chair  fearfully, 
like  an  intruder,  his  face  towards  the  choir. 

The  whispers  ceased;  the  organist's  fingers  began  to 
move  over  five  rows  of  notes,  and  over  scores  of  stops, 
while  his  feet  groped  beneath,  and  Priam  heard  music, 
afar  off.  And  close  behind  him  he  heard  rumblings, 
steamy  vibrations,    and,   as  it  were,   sudden  escapes  of 


IN  THE  VALHALLA.  Ql 

gas;  and  comprehended  that  these  were  the  hoarse 
responses  of  the  52  and  64  foot  pipes,  laid  horizontally 
along  the  roof  of  the  screen,  to  the  summoning  fingers 
of  the  organist.  It  was  all  uncanny,  weird,  supernatural, 
demoniacal  if  you  will — it  was  part  of  the  secret  and 
unsuspected  mechanism  of  a  vast  emotional  pageant 
and  spectacle.  It  unnerved  Priam,  especially  when  the 
organist,  a  handsome  youngish  man  with  lustrous  eyes, 
half  turned  and  winked  at  one  of  his  companions. 

The  thrilling  voices  of  the  choristers  grew  louder, 
and  as  they  grew  louder  Priam  Farll  was  conscious  of 
unaccustomed  phenomena  in  his  throat,  which  shut  and 
opened  of  itself  convulsively.  To  divert  his  attention 
from  his  throat,  he  partially  rose  from  the  Windsor 
chair,  and  peeped  over  the  parapet  of  the  screen  into 
the  choir,  whose  depths  were  candle-lit  and  whose 
altitudes  were  capriciously  bathed  by  the  intermittent 
splendours  of  the  sun.  High,  high  up,  in  front  of  him, 
at  the  summit  of  a  precipice  of  stone,  a  little  window, 
out  of  the  sunshine,  burned  sullenly  in  a  gloom  of 
complicated  perspectives.  And  far  below,  stretched 
round  the  pulpit  and  disappearing  among  the  forest  ot 
statuary  in  the  transept,  was  a  floor  consisting  of  the 
heads  of  the  privileged — famous,  renowned,  notorious, 
by  heredity,  talent,  enterprise,  or  hazard;  he  had  read 
many  of  their  names  in  the  Daily  Telegraph.  The 
voices   of  the   choristers   had  become  piercing  in  their 


92  BURIED  ALIVE. 

beauty.  Priam  frankly  stood  up,  and  leaned  over  the 
parapet.  Every  gaze  was  turned  to  a  point  under  him 
which  he  could  not  see.  And  then  something  swayed 
from  beneath  into  the  iield  of  his  vision.  It  was  a  tall 
cross  borne  by  a  beadle.  In  the  wake  of  the  cross 
there  came  to  view  gorgeous  ecclesiastics  in  pairs,  and 
then  a  robed  man  walking  backwards  and  gesticulating 
in  the  manner  of  some  important,  excited  official  of  the 
Salvation  Army;  and  after  this  violent  robe  arrived  the 
scarlet  choristers,  singing  to  the  beat  of  his  gesture. 
And  then  swung  into  view  the  coffin,  covered  with  a 
heavy  purple  pall,  and  on  the  pall  a  single  white  cross; 
and  the  pall-bearers — great  European  names  that  had 
hurried  out  of  the  corners  of  P^urope  as  at  a  peremptory 
mandate — with  Duncan  Farll  to  complete  the  tale! 

Was  it  the  coffin,  or  the  richness  of  its  pall,  or  the 
solitary  whiteness  of  its  cross  of  flowers,  or  the  august 
authority  of  the  bearers,  that  affected  Priam  Farll  like  a 
blow  on  the  heart?  Who  knows?  But  the  fact  was 
that  he  could  look  no  more;  the  scene  was  too  much 
for  him.  Had  he  continued  to  look  he  would  have 
burst  uncontrollably  into  tears.  It  mattered  not  that 
the  corpse  of  a  common  rascally  valet  lay  under  that 
pall;  it  mattered  not  that  a  grotesque  error  was  being 
enacted;  it  mattered  not  whether  the  actuating  spring 
of  the  immense  affair  was  the  Dean's  water-colouring 
niece   or  the   solemn   deliberations  of  the   Chapter;   it 


EST  THE  VALHALLA.  93 

mattered  not  that  newspapers  had  ignobly  misused  the 
name  and  honour  of  art  for  their  own  advancement — 
the  instant  effect  was  overwhelmingly  impressive.  All 
that  had  been  honest  and  sincere  in  the  heart  of  Eng- 
land for  a  thousand  years  leapt  mystically  up  and  made 
it  impossible  that  the  effect  should  be  other  than  over- 
whelmingly impressive.  It  was  an  effect  beyond  argu- 
ment and  reason;  it  was  the  magic  flowering  of 
centuries  in  a  single  moment,  the  silent  awful  sigh  of  a 
nation's  secular  soul.  It  took  majesty  and  loveliness 
from  the  walls  around  it,  and  rendered  them  again  ten- 
fold. It  left  nothing  common,  neither  the  motives  nor 
the  littleness  of  men.  In  Priam's  mind  it  gave  dignity 
to  Lady  Sophia  Entwistle,  and  profound  tragedy  to  the 
death  of  Leek;  it  transformed  even  the  gestures  of  the 
choir-leader  into  grave  commands. 

And  all  that  was  for  him!  He  had  brushed  pig- 
ments onto  cloth  in  a  way  of  his  own,  nothing  more, 
and  the  nation  to  which  he  had  always  denied  artistic 
perceptions,  the  nation  which  he  had  always  fiercely 
accused  of  sentimentality,  was  thus  solemnising  his  com- 
mittal to  the  earth!  Divine  mystery  of  art!  The  large 
magnificence  of  England  smote  him!  He  had  not  sus- 
pected his  own  greatness,  nor  England's. 

The  music  ceased.  He  chanced  to  look  up  at  the 
little  glooming  window,  perched  out  of  reach  of  man- 
kind.    And  the  thought  that  the  window   had   burned 


94  BURIED  ALIVE. 

there,  patiently  and  unexpectantly,  for  hundreds  of 
years,  hke  an  anchorite  above  the  river  and  town,  some- 
how disturbed  him  so  that  he  could  not  continue  to 
look  at  it.  Ineffable  sadness  of  a  mere  window!  And 
his  eye  fell — fell  on  the  coffin  of  Henry  Leek  with  its 
white  cross,  and  the  representative  of  England's  majesty 
standing  beside  it.  And  there  was  the  end  of  Priam 
Farll's  self-control.  A  pang  like  a  pang  of  parturition 
itself  seized  him,  and  an  issuing  sob  nearly  ripped  him 
in  two.  It  was  a  loud  sob,  undisguised,  unashamed, 
reverberating.  Other  sobs  succeeded  it.  Priam  Farll 
was  in  torture. 


A   NEW   HAT. 

The  organist  vaulted  over  his  seat,  shocked  by  the 
outrage. 

"You  really  mustn't  make  that  noise,"  whispered  the 
organist. 

Priam  Farll  shook  him  off. 

The  organist  was  apparently  at  a  loss  what  to  do. 

"Who  is  it?"  whispered  one  of  the  young  men. 

"Don't  know  him  from  Adam!"  said  the  organist 
with  conviction,  and  then  to  Priam  Farll:  "Who  are 
you?  You've  no  right  to  be  here.  Who  gave  you  per- 
mission to  come  up  here?" 

And  the  rending  sobs  continued  to  issue  from  the 


A   NEW  HAT.  95 

full-bodied  ridiculous  man  of  fifty,  utterly  careless  of 
decorum. 

"It's  perfectly  absurd!"  whispered  the  youngster 
who  had  whispered  before. 

There  had  been  a  silence  in  the  choir. 

"Here!  They're  waiting  for  you!"  whispered  the 
other  young  man  excitedly  to  the  organist. 

"By !"    whispered    the    alarmed    organist,    not 

stopping  to  say  by  what,  but  leaping  like  an  acrobat 
back  to  his  seat.  His  fingers  and  boots  were  at  work 
instantly,  and  as  he  played  he  turned  his  head  and 
whispered — 

"Better  fetch  someone." 

One  of  the  young  men  crept  quickly  and  creakingly 
down  the  stairs.  Fortunately  the  organ  and  choristers 
were  now  combined  to  overcome  the  sobbing,  and  they 
succeeded.  Presently  a  powerful  arm,  hidden  under  a 
black  cassock,  was  laid  on  Priam's  shoulder.  He  hys- 
terically tried  to  free  himself,  but  he  could  not.  The 
cassock  and  the  two  young  men  thrust  him  downwards. 
They  all  descended  together,  partly  walking  and  partly 
falling.  And  then  a  door  was  opened,  and  Priam  dis- 
covered himself  in  the  unroofed  air  of  the  cloisters, 
without  his  hat,  and  breathing  in  gasps.  His  exe- 
cutioners were  also  breathing  in  gasps.  They  glared 
at  him  in  triumphant  menace,  as  though  they  had  done 
something,  which  indeed  they  had,  and  as  though  they 


96  BURIED  ALIVE. 

meant  to  do  something  more  but  could  not  quite  decide 
what. 

"Where's  your  ticket  of  admission?"  demanded  the 
cassock. 

Priam  fumbled  for  it,  and  could  not  find  it. 

"I  must  have  lost  it,"  he  said  weakly. 

"What's  your  name,  anyhow?" 

"Priam  Farll,"  said  Priam  Farll,  without  thinking. 

"Off  his  nut,  evidently!"  murmured  one  of  the 
young  men  contemptuously.  "Come  on,  Stan.  Don't 
let's  miss  that  anthem,  for  this  cuss."  And  off  they 
both  went. 

Then  a  youthful  policeman  appeared,  putting  on  his 
helmet  as  he  quitted  the  fane. 

"What's  all  this?"  asked  the  policeman,  in  the  as- 
sured tone  of  one  who  had  the  forces  of  the  Empire 
behind  him. 

"He's  been  making  a  disturbance  in  the  horgan-loft," 
said  the  cassock,  "and  now  he  says  his  name's  Priam 
Farll." 

"Oh!"  said  the  policeman.  "Ho!  And  how  did 
he  get  into  the  organ-loft?" 

"Don't  arsk  me,"  answered  the  cassock.  "He  ain't 
got  no  ticket." 

"Now  then,  out  of  it!"  said  the  policeman,  taking 
zealously  hold  of  Priam. 

"Pll  thank  you  to   leave  me  alone,"  said  Priam,  re- 


A  NEW  HAT.  97 

belling  with  all  the  pride  of  his  nature  against  this 
clutch  of  the  law. 

"Oh,  you  will,  will  you?"  said  the  policeman.  "We'll 
see  about  that.     We  shall  just  see  about  that." 

And  the  policeman  dragged  Priam  along  the  cloister 
to  the  muffled  music  of  "He  will  swallow  up  death  in 
victory."  They  had  not  thus  proceeded  very  far  when 
they  met  another  policeman,  an  older  policeman. 

"What's  all  this?"  demanded  the  older  policeman. 

"Drunk  and  disorderly  in  the  Abbey!"  said  the 
younger. 

"W^ill  you  come  quietly?"  the  older  policeman  asked 
Priam,  with  a  touch  of  commiseration. 

"Pm  not  drunk,"  said  Priam  fiercely;  he  was  un- 
versed in  London,  and  unaware  of  the  foolishness  of 
reasoning  with  the  watch-dogs  of  justice. 

"Will  you  come  quietly?"  the  older  policeman  re- 
peated, this  time  without  any  touch  of  commiseration. 

"Yes,"  said  Priam. 

And  he  went  quietly.  Experience  may  teach  with 
the  rapidity  of  lightning. 

"But  Where's  my  hat?"  he  added  after  a  moment, 
instinctively  stopping. 

"Now  then!"  said  the  older  policeman.  "Come 
on." 

He  walked  between  them,  striding.  Just  as  they 
emerged  into  Dean's  Yard,  his  left  hand  nervously  ex- 

Buried  Alive.  "J 


9  8  BURIED  ALIVK. 

ploring  one  of  his  pockets,  on  a  sudden  encountered  a 
piece  of  card-board. 

"Here's  my  ticket,"  he  said.  "I  thought  I'd  lost  it. 
I've  had  nothing  at  all  to  drink,  and  you'd  better  let 
me  go.     The  whole  affair's  a  mistake." 

The  procession  halted,  while  the  older  policeman 
gazed  fascinated  at  the  official  document. 

"Henry  Leek,"  he  read,  deciphering  the  name. 

"He's  been  a- telling  everyone  as  he's  Priam  Farll," 
grumbled  the  younger  policeman,  looking  over  the  other's 
shoulder. 

"I've  done  no  such  thing,"  said  Priam  promptly. 

The  elder  carefully  inspected  the  prisoner,  and  two 
little  boys  arrived  and  formed  a  crowd,  which  was  im- 
mediately dispersed  by  a  frown. 

"He  don't  look  as  if  he'd  had  'ardly  as  much  drink 
as  'ud  wash  a  bus,  does  he?"  murmured  the  elder 
critically.  The  younger,  afraid  of  his  senior,  said  no- 
thing. "Look  here,  Mr.  Henry  Leek,"  the  elder  pro- 
ceeded, "do  you  know  what  I  should  do  if  I  was  you? 
I  should  go  and  buy  myself  a  new  hat,  if  I  was  you, 
and  quick  too!" 

Priam  hastened  away,  and  heard  the  senior  say  to 
the  junior,  "He's  a  toff,  that's  what  he  is,  and  you're  a 
fool.     Have  you  forgotten  as  you're  on  point  duty?" 

And  such  is  the  effect  of  a  suggestion  given  under 
certain  circumstances  by  a  man  of  authority,  that  Priam 


A  NEW  HAT.  99 

Fcirll  went  straight  along  Victoria  Street  and  at  Sowter's 
famous  one-price  hat-shop  did  in  fact  buy  himself  a 
new  hat.  He  then  hailed  a  taximeter  from  the  stand 
opposite  the  Army  and  Navy  Stores,  and  curtly  gave 
the  address  of  the  Grand  Babylon  Hotel.  And  when 
the  cab  was  fairly  at  speed,  and  not  before,  he  abandoned 
himself  to  a  fit  of  candid,  unrestrained  cursing.  He 
cursed  largely  and  variously  and  shamelessly  both  in 
English  and  in  French.  And  he  did  not  cease  cursing. 
It  was  a  reaction  which  I  do  not  care  to  characterise; 
but  I  will  not  conceal  that  it  occurred.  The  fit  spent 
itself  before  he  reached  the  hotel,  for  most  of  Parliament 
Street  was  blocked  for  the  spectacular  purposes  of  his 
funeral,  and  his  driver  had  to  seek  devious  ways.  The 
cursing  over,  he  began  to  smooth  his  plumes  in  detail. 
At  the  hotel,  out  of  sheer  nervousness,  he  gave  the  cab- 
man half-a-crown,  which  was  preposterous. 

Another  cab  drove  up  nearly  at  the  exact  instant  of 
his  arrival.  And,  as  a  capping  to  the  day,  Mrs.  Alice 
Challice  stepped  out  of  it. 


7* 


100  BURIED  ALIVE. 


CHAPTER    V. 

ALICE   ON   HOTELS. 

She  was  wearing  the  same  red  roses. 

"Oh!"  she  said,  very  quickly,  pouring  out  the  words 
generously  from  the  inexhaustible  mine  of  her  good 
heart.  "I'm  so  sorry  I  missed  you  Saturday  night.  I 
can't  tell  you  how  sorry  I  am.  Of  course  it  was  all  my 
fault.  I  oughtn't  to  have  got  into  the  lift  without  you. 
I  ought  to  have  waited.  When  I  was  in  the  lift  I 
wanted  to  get  out,  but  the  lift-man  was  too  quick  for 
me.  And  then  on  the  platforms — well,  there  was  such 
a  crowd  it  was  useless!  I  knew  it  was  useless.  And 
you  not  having  my  address  either!  I  wondered  what- 
ever you  would  think  of  me." 

"My  dear  lady!"  he  protested.  "I  can  assure  you 
I  blamed  only  myself.     My  hat  blew  off,  and " 

"Did  it  now!"  she  took  him  up  breathlessly.  "Well, 
all  I  want  you  to  understand  really  is  that  I'm  not  one 
of  those  silly  sort  of  women  that  go  losing  themselves. 
No.  Such  a  thing's  never  happened  to  me  before,  and 
I  shall  take  good  care " 

She  glanced  round.    He  had  paid  both  the  cabmen, 


ALICE   ON  HOTELS.  lOI 

who  were  departing,  and  he  and  Mrs.  AHce  ChalHce 
stood  under  the  immense  glass  portico  of  the  Grand 
Babylon,  exposed  to  the  raking  stare  of  two  com- 
missionaires. 

"So  you  are  staying  here!"  she  said,  as  if  laying 
hold  of  a  fact  which  she  had  hitherto  hesitated  to 
touch. 

"Yes,"  he  said.     "Won't  you  come  in?" 

He  took  her  into  the  rich  gloom  of  the  Grand 
Babylon  dashingly,  fighting  against  the  demon  of  shyness 
and  beating  it  off  with  great  loss.  They  sat  down  in  a 
corner  of  the  principal  foyer,  where  a  few  electric  lights 
drew  attention  to  empty  fauteuils  and  the  blossoms  on 
the  Aubusson  carpet.     The  world  was  at  lunch. 

"And  a  fine  time  I  had  getting  your  address!"  said 
she.  "Of  course  I  wrote  at  once  to  Selwood  Terrace, 
as  soon  as  I  got  home,  but  I  had  the  wrong  number, 
somehow,  and  I  kept  waiting  and  waiting  for  an  answer, 
and  the  only  answer  I  received  was  the  returned  letter. 
I  knew  I'd  got  the  street  right,  and  I  said,  'I'll  find  that 
house  if  I  have  to  ring  every  bell  in  Selwood  Terrace, 
yes,  and  knock  every  knocker!'  Well,  I  did  find  it, 
and  then  they  wouldn't  give  me  your  address.  They 
said  'letters  would  be  forwarded,'  if  you  please.  But  I 
wasn't  going  to  have  any  more  letter  business,  no,  thank 
you!  So  I  said  I  wouldn't  go  without  the  address.  It 
was  Mr.  Duncan  Farll's  clerk  that  I  saw.     He's  living 


102  BURIED  ALIVE. 

there  for  the  time  being.  A  very  nice  young  man.  We 
got  quite  friendly.  It  seems  Mr.  Duncan  Farll  zvas  in 
a  state  when  he  found  the  wiH.  The  young  man  did 
say  that  he  broke  a  typewriter  all  to  pieces.  But  the 
funeral  being  in  Westminster  Abbey  consoled  him.  It 
wouldn't  have  consoled  me — no,  not  it!  However,  he's 
very  rich  himself,  so  that  doesn't  matter.  The  young 
man  said  if  I'd  call  again  he'd  ask  his  master  if  he 
might  give  me  your  address.  A  rare  fuss  over  an 
address,  thought  I  to  myself.  But  there!  Lawyers!  So 
I  called  again,  and  he  gave  it  me.  I  could  have  come 
yesterday.  I  very  nearly  wrote  last  night.  But  I  thought 
on  the  whole  I'd  better  wait  till  the  funeral  was  over. 
I  thought  it  would  be  nicer  It's  over  now,  I  sup- 
pose?" 

"Yes,"  said  Priam  Farll. 

She  smiled  at  him  with  grave  sympathy,  comfortably 
and  sensibly.  "And  right  down  relieved  you  must 
be!"  she  murmured.  "It  must  have  been  very  trying 
for  you." 

"In  a  way,"  he  answered  hesitatingly,  "it  was." 

Taking  off  her  gloves,  she  glanced  round  about  her, 
as  a  thief  must  glance  before  opening  the  door,  and 
then,  leaning  suddenly  towards  him,  she  put  her  hands 
to  his  neck  and  touched  his  collar.  "No,  no!"  she  said. 
"Let  me  do  it.  I  can  do  it.  There's  no  one  looking. 
It's  unbuttoned;  the  necktie  was  holding  it  in  place,  but 


ALICE  ON  HOTELS.  IO3 

it's  got  quite  loose  now.  There!  I  can  do  it.  I  see 
you've  got  two  funny  moles  on  your  neck,  close  together. 
How  lucky!     That's  it!"     A  final  pat! 

Now,  no  woman  had  ever  patted  Priam  Farll's 
necktie  before,  much  less  buttoned  his  collar,  and  still 
much  less  referred  to  the  two  little  moles,  one  hirsute, 
the  other  hairless,  which  the  collar  hid — when  it  was 
properly  buttoned!  The  experience  was  startling  for 
him  in  the  extreme.  It  might  have  made  him  very 
angry,  had  the  hands  of  Mrs.  Challice  not  been — well, 
nurse's  hands,  soft  hands,  persuasive  hands,  hands  that 
could  practise  impossible  audacities  with  impunity. 
Imagine  a  woman,  uninvited  and  unpermitted,  arranging 
his  collar  and  necktie  for  him  in  the  largest  public 
room  of  the  Grand  Babylon,  and  then  talking  about  his 
little  moles!  It  would  have  been  unimaginable!  Yet 
it  happened.  And  moreover,  he  had  not  disliked  it. 
She  sat  back  in  her  chair  as  though  she  had  done  no- 
thing in  the  least  degree  unusual. 

"I  can  see  you  must  have  been  very  upset,"  she 
said  gently,  "though  he  has  only  left  you  a  pound  a 
week.  Still,  that's  better  than  a  bat  in  the  eye  with  a 
burnt  stick." 

A  bat  in  the  eye  with  a  burnt  stick  reminded  him 
vaguely  of  encounters  with  the  police;  otherwise  it  con- 
veyed no  meaning  to  his  mind. 

"I  hope   you    haven't  got  to  go  on  duty  at  ouce," 


104  BURIED  ALIVE. 

she  said  after  a  pause.  "Because  you  really  do  look  as 
if  you  needed  a  rest,  and  a  cup  of  tea  or  something  of 
that.  I'm  quite  ashamed  to  have  come  bothering  you 
so  soon." 

"Duty?"  he  questioned.     "What  duty?" 

"Why,"  she  exclaimed,  "haven't  you  got  a  new 
place?" 

"New  place!"  he  repeated  after.  "What  do  you 
mean?" 

"Why,  as  valet." 

There  was  certainly  danger  in  his  tendency  to  forget 
that  he  was  a  valet.     He  collected  himself. 

"No,"  he  said,  "I  haven't  got  a  new  place." 

"Then  why  are  you  staying  here?"  she  cried.  "I 
thought  you  were  simply  here  with  a  new  master. 
Why  are  you  staying  here  alone?" 

"Oh,"  he  replied,  abashed,  "it  seemed  a  convenient 
place.     It  was  just  by  chance  that  I  came  here." 

"Convenient  place  indeed!"  she  said  stoutly.  "I 
never  heard  of  such  a  thing ! " 

He  perceived  that  he  had  shocked  her,  pained  her. 
He  saw  that  some  ingenious  defence  of  himself  was 
required;  but  he  could  find  none.  So  he  said,  in  his 
confusion — ■ 

"Suppose  we  go  and  have  something  to  eat?  I  do 
want  a  bit  of  lunch,  as  you  say,  now  I  come  to  think 
of  it.     Will  you?" 


ALICE   ON   HOTELS.  IO5 

"What?     Here?"  she  demanded  apprehensively. 

"Yes,"  he  said.     "Why  not?" 

"Well " 

"Come  along!"  he  said,  with  fine  casualness,  and 
conducted  her  to  the  eight  swinging  glass  doors  that 
led  to  the  salle  a  manger  of  the  Grand  Babylon.  At 
each  pair  of  doors  was  a  living  statue  of  dignity  in 
cloth  of  gold.  She  passed  these  statues  without  a  sign 
of  fear,  but  when  she  saw  the  room  itself,  steeped  in  a 
supra-genteel  calm,  full  of  gowns  and  hats  and  every- 
thing that  you  read  about  in  the  Lady's  Pictorial,  and 
the  pennoned  mast  of  a  barge  crossing  the  windows  at 
the  other  end,  she  stopped  suddenly.  And  one  of  the 
lord  mayors  of  the  Grand  Babylon,  wearing  a  mayoral 
chain,  who  had  started  out  to  meet  them,  stopped  also. 

"No!"  she  said.  "I  don't  feel  as  if  I  could  eat 
here.     I  really  couldn't." 

"But  why?" 

"Well,"  she  said,  "I  couldn't  fancy  it  somehow. 
Can't  we  go  somewhere  else?" 

"Certainly  we  can,"  he  agreed  with  an  eagerness 
that  was  more  than  polite. 

She  thanked  him  with  another  of  her  comfortable, 
sensible  smiles — a  smile  that  took  all  embarrassment 
out  of  the  dilemma,  as  balm  will  take  irritation  from  a 
wound.  And  gently  she  removed  her  hat  and  gown, 
and  her  gestures  and  speech,  and  her  comfortableness, 


I06  BURIED   ALIVE. 

from  those  august  precincts.  And  they  descended  to 
the  grill-room,  which  was  relatively  noisy,  and  where 
lier  roses  were  less  conspicuous  than  the  helmet  of 
Navarre,  and  her  frock  found  its  sisters  and  cousins 
from  far  lands. 

"I'm  not  much  for  these  restaurants,"  she  said,  over 
grilled  kidneys. 

"No?"  he  responded  tentatively.  "I'm  sorry.  I 
thought  the  other  night -" 

"Oh  yes,"  she  broke  in,  "I  was  very  glad  to  go,  the 
other  night,  to  that  place,  very  glad.  But,  you  see,  I'd 
never  been  in  a  restaurant  before." 

"Really?" 

"No,"  she  said,  "and  I  felt  as  if  I  should  like  to 
try  one.  And  the  young  lady  at  the  post  office  had 
told  me  that  that  one  was  a  splendid  one.  So  it  is. 
It's  beautiful.  But  of  course  they  ought  to  be  ashamed 
to  offer  you  such  food.  Now  do  you  remember  that 
sole?  Sole!  It  was  no  more  sole  than  this  glove's 
sole.  And  if  it  had  been  cooked  a  minute,  it  had 
been  cooked  an  hour,  and  waiting.  And  then  look  at 
the  prices.     Oh  yes,  I  couldn't  help  seeing  the  bill." 

"I  thought  it  was  awfully  cheap,"  said  he. 

"Well,  /didn't!"  said  she.  "When  you  think  that 
a  good  housekeeper  can  keep  everything  going  on  tea 
shillings  a  head  a  iveek.  .  .  .  Why,  it's  simply  scan- 
dalous!    And  I  suppose  this  place  is  even  dearer?" 


ALICE  ON  HOTELS.  IO7 

He  avoided  the  question.  "This  is  a  better  pLice 
altogether,"  he  said.  "In  fact,  I  don't  know  many 
places  in  Europe  where  one  can  eat  better  than  one 
does  here." 

"Don't  you?"  she  said  indulgently,  as  it"  saying, 
"Well,  I  know  one,  at  any  rate." 

"They  say,"  he  continued,  "that  there  is  no  butter 
used  in  this  place  that  costs  less  than  three  shillings  a 
pound." 

"No  butter  costs  them  three  shillings  a  pound," 
said  she. 

"Not  in  London,"  said  he.  "They  have  it  from 
Paris." 

"And  do  you  believe  that?"  she  asked. 

"Yes,"  he  said. 

"Well,  I  don't.  Anyone  that  pays  more  than  one- 
and-nine  a  pound  for  butter,  at  the  most,  is  a  tool,  if 
you'll  excuse  me  saying  the  word.  Not  but  what  this 
is  good  butter.  I  couldn't  get  as  good  in  Putney  for 
less  than  eighteen  pence." 

She  made  him  feel  like  a  child  who  has  a  great 
deal  to  pick  up  from  a  kindly  but  firm  sister. 

"No,  thank  you,"   she   said,    a  little  dryly,    to  the 
waiter  who  proffered  a  further  supply  of  chip  potatoes. 
"Now  don't  say  they're  cold,"  Priam  laughed. 
And  she  laughed  also.     "Shall  I  tell  you  one  thing 
that  puts  me  against  these  restaurants?"    she  went  on. 


I08  EURIED   ALIVE. 

"It's  the  feeling  you  have  that  you  don't  know  where 
the  food's  been.  AVhen  you've  got  your  kitchen  close 
to  your  dining-room,  and  you  can  keep  an  eye  on  the 
stuff  from  the  moment  the  cart  brings  it,  well,  then, 
you  do  know  a  bit  where  you  are.  And  you  can  have 
your  dishes  served  hot.  It  stands  to  reason,"  she  said. 
"Where  is  the  kitchen  here?" 

"Somewhere  down  below,"  he  replied  apologetically. 

"A  cellar  kitchen!"  she  exclaimed.  "Why,  in 
Putney  they  simply  can't  let  houses  with  cellar  kitchens. 
No!  No  restaurants  and  hotels  for  me — not  for  choice 
— that  is,  regularly." 

"Still,"  he  said,  with  a  judicial  air,  "hotels  are  very 
convenient." 

"Are  they?"  she  said,  meaning,  "Prove  it." 

"For  instance,  here,  there's  a  telephone  in  every 
room." 

"You  don't  mean  in  the  bedrooms?" 

"Yes,  in  every  bedroom." 

"Well,"  she  said,  "you  wouldn't  catch  me  having  a 
telephone  in  my  bedroom.  I  should  never  sleep  if  I 
knew  there  was  a  telephone  in  the  room!  Fancy  being 
forced  to  telephone  every  time  you  want — well!  And 
how  is  one  to  know  who  there  is  at  the  other  end  of 
the  telephone?  No,  I  don't  like  that.  All  that's  all 
very  well  for  gentlemen  that  haven't  been  used  to  what 
I  call  comioxi^  in  a  way  of  speaking.     But " 


ALICE  ON  HOTELS.  lOQ 

He  saw  that  if  he  persisted,  nothing  soon  would  be 
left  of  that  noble  pile,  the  Grand  Babylon  Hotel,  save 
a  heap  of  ruins.  And,  further,  she  genuinely  did  cause 
him  to  feel  that  throughout  his  career  he  had  always 
missed  the  very  best  things  of  life,  through  being  an 
uncherished,  ingenuous,  easily  satisfied  man.  A  new 
sensation  for  him!  For  if  any  male  in  Europe  believed 
in  his  own  capacity  to  make  others  make  him  comfort- 
able, Priam  Farll  was  that  male. 

"I've  never  been  in  Putney,"  he  ventured,  on  a  new 
track. 


DIFFICULTY   OF   TRUTH-TELLING. 

As  she  informed  him,  with  an  ungrudging  par- 
ticularity, about  Putney,  and  her  life  at  Putney,  there 
gradually  arose  in  his  brain  a  vision  of  a  kind  of 
existence  such  as  he  had  never  encountered.  Putney 
had  clearly  the  advantages  of  a  residential  town  in  a 
magnificent  situation.  It  lay  on  the  slope  of  a  hill 
whose  foot  was  washed  by  a  glorious  stream  entitled 
the  Thames,  its  breast  covered  with  picturesque  barges 
and  ornamental  rowing  boats;  an  arched  bridge  spanned 
this  stream,  and  you  went  over  the  bridge  in  milk-white 
omnibuses  to  London.  Putney  had  a  street  of  hand- 
some shops,  a  purely  business  street;  no  one  slept  there 


I  I O  BURIED  ALIVE. 

now  because  of  the  noise  of  motors;  at  eventide  the 
street  glittered  in  its  own  splendours.  There  were 
theatre,  music-hall,  assembly-rooms,  concert  hall,  market, 
brewery,  library,  and  an  afternoon  tea  shop  exactly  like 
Regent  Street  (not  that  Mrs.  Challice  cared  for  their 
alleged  China  tea);  also  churches  and  chapels;  and 
Barnes  Common  if  you  walked  one  way,  and  Wimbledon 
Common  if  you  walked  another.  Mrs.  Challice  lived  in 
Werter  Road,  Werter  Road  starting  conveniently  at  the 
corner  of  the  High  Street  where  the  fish-shop  was — an 
establishment  where  authentic  sole  was  always  obtain- 
able, though  it  was  advisable  not  to  buy  it  on  Monday 
mornings,  of  course.  Putney  was  a  place  where  you 
lived  unvexed,  untroubled.  You  had  your  little  house, 
and  your  furniture,  and  your  ability  to  look  after  your- 
self at  all  ends,  and  your  knowledge  of  the  prices  of 
everything,  and  your  deep  knowledge  of  human  nature, 
and  your  experienced  forgivingness  towards  human 
frailties.  You  did  not  keep  a  servant,  because  servants 
were  so  complicated,  and  because  they  could  do  nothing 
whatever  as  well  as  you  could  do  it  yourself  You  had 
a  charwoman  when  you  felt  idle  or  when  you  chose  to 
put  the  house  into  the  back-yard  for  an  airing.  With 
the  charwoman,  a  pair  of  gloves  for  coarser  work,  and 
gas  stoves,  you  "made  naught"  of  domestic  labour. 
You  were  never  worried  by  ambitions,  or  by  envy,  or  by 
the  desire  to  know  precisely  what  the  wealthy  did  and 


DIFFICULTY  OF  TRUTH-TELLING.  1  I  I 

to  do  likewise.  You  read  when  you  were  not  more 
amusingly  occupied,  prefemng  illustrated  papers  and 
magazines.  You  did  not  traffic  with  art  to  any  ap- 
preciable extent,  and  you  never  dreamed  of  letting  it 
keep  you  awake  at  night.  You  were  rich,  for  the  reason 
that  you  spent  less  than  you  received.  You  never 
speculated  about  the  ultimate  causes  of  things,  or 
puzzled  yourself  concerning  the  possible  developments 
of  society  in  the  next  hundred  years.  When  you  saw  a 
poor  old  creature  in  the  street  you  bought  a  box  of 
matches  off  the  poor  old  creature.  The  social  pheno- 
menon which  chiefly  roused  you  to  just  anger  was  the 
spectacle  of  wealthy  people  making  money  and  so  taking 
the  bread  out  of  the  mouths  of  people  who  needed  it. 
The  only  apparent  blots  on  existence  at  Putney  were 
the  noise  and  danger  of  the  High  Street,  the  dearth  of 
reliable  laundries,  the  manners  of  a  middle-aged  lady 
engaged  at  the  post  office  (Mrs.  Challice  liked  the  other 
ladies  in  the  post  office),  and  the  absence  of  a  suitable 
man  in  the  house. 

Existence  at  Putney  seemed  to  Priam  Farll  to  ap- 
proach the  Utopian.  It  seemed  to  breathe  of  romance 
■ — the  romance  of  commonsense  and  kindliness  and 
simplicity.  It  made  his  own  existence  to  that  day  ap- 
pear a  futile  and  unhappy  striving  after  the  impossible. 
Art?  What  was  it?  What  did  it  lead  to?  He  was 
sick  of  art,  and  sick  of  all  the  forms  of  activity  to  which 


1  I  2  BURIED  ALIVE, 

he  had  hitherto  been  accustomed  and  which  he  had 
mistaken  for  hfe  itself. 

One  httle  home,  fixed  and  stable,  rendered  foolish 
the  whole  concourse  of  European  hotels. 

"I  suppose  you  won't  be  staying  here  long," 
demanded  Mrs.  Challice. 

"Oh  no!"  he  said.     "I  shall  decide  something." 

"Shall  you  take  another  place?"  she  inquired. 

"Another  place?" 

"Yes."  Her  smile  was  excessively  persuasive  and 
inviting. 

"I  don't  know,"  he  said  diffidently. 

"You  must  have  put  a  good  bit  by,"  she  said,  still 
with  the  same  smile.  "Or  perhaps  you  haven't. 
Saving's  a  matter  of  chance.  That's  what  I  always  do 
say.  It  just  depends  how  you  begin.  It's  a  habit.  I'd 
never    really    blame    anybody    for    not    saving.       And 

men !"     She  seemed  to  wish  to  indicate  that  men 

were  specially  to  be  excused  if  they  did  not  save. 

She  had  a  large  mind:  that  was  sure.  She  under- 
stood— things,  and  human  nature  in  particular.  She 
was  not  one  of  those  creatures  that  a  man  meets  with 
sometimes — creatures  who  are  for  ever  on  the  watch  to 
pounce,  and  who  are  incapable  of  making  allowances 
for  any  male  frailty — smooth,  smiling  creatures,  with 
thin  lips,  hair  a  little  scanty  at  the  front,  and  a  quietly 
omniscient  "  don't- tell-»i^"  tone.    Mrs.  Alice  Challice  had 


DIFFICULTY  OF  TRUTH-TELLING.  XI ^ 

a  mouth  as  wide  as  her  ideas,  and  a  full  underlip.  She 
was  a  woman  who,  as  it  were,  ran  out  to  meet  you 
when  you  started  to  cross  the  dangerous  roadway  which 
separates  the  two  sexes.  She  comprehended  because 
she  wanted  to  comprehend.  And  when  she  could  not 
comprehend  she  would  deceive  herself  that  she  did: 
which  amounts  to  the  equivalent. 

She  was  a  living  proof  that  in  her  sex  social  dis- 
tinctions do  not  effectively  count.  Nothing  counted, 
where  she  was  concerned,  except  a  distinction  far  more 
profound  than  any  social  distinction — the  historic  dis- 
tinction between  Adam  and  Eve.  She  was  balm  to 
Priam  Farll.  She  might  have  been  equally  balm  to 
King  David,  Uriah  the  Hittite,  Socrates,  Rousseau,  Lord 
Byron,  Heine,  or  Charlie  Peace.  She  would  have  under- 
stood them  all.  They  would  all  have  been  ready  to 
cushion  themselves  on  her  comfortableness.  Was  she 
a  lady?     Pish!     She  was  a  woman. 

Her  temperament  drew  Priam  Farll  like  an  electri- 
fied magnet.  To  wander  about  freely  in  that  roomy 
sympathy  of  hers  seemed  to  him  to  be  the  supreme 
reward  of  experience.  It  seemed  like  the  good  inn 
after  the  bleak  highroad,  the  oasis  after  the  sandstorm, 
shade  after  glare,  the  dressing  after  the  wound,  sleep 
after  insomnia,  surcease  from  unspeakable  torture.  He 
wanted,  in  a  word,  to  tell  her  everything,  because  she 
would  not  demand  any  difficult  explanations.     She  had 

Buried  Alive.  8 


114  BURIED  ALIVE. 

given  him  an  opening,  in  her  mention  of  savings.  In 
reply  to  her  suggestion,  "You  must  have  put  a  good  bit 
by,"  he  could  casually  answer: 

"Yes,  a  hundred  and  forty  thousand  pounds." 
And  that  would  lead  by  natural  stages  to  a  com- 
plete revealing  of  the  fix  in  which  he  was.  In  five 
minutes  he  would  have  confided  to  her  the  principal 
details,  and  she  would  have  understood,  and  then  he 
could  describe  his  agonising  and  humiliating  half-hour 
in  the  Abbey,  and  she  would  pour  her  magic  oil  on 
that  dreadful  abrasion  of  his  sensitiveness.  And  he 
would  be  healed  of  his  hurts,  and  they  would  settle  be- 
tween them  what  he  ought  to  do. 

He  regarded  her  as  his  refuge,  as  fate's  generous 
compensation  to  him  for  the  loss  of  Henry  Leek  (whose 
remains  now  rested  in  the  National  Valhalla). 

Only,  it  would  be  necessary  to  begin  the  explana- 
tion, so  that  one  thing  might  by  natural  stages  lead  to 
another.  On  reflection,  it  appeared  rather  abrupt  to 
say: 

"Yes,  a  hundred  and  forty  thousand  pounds." 
The  sum   was   too   absurdly  high   (though   correct). 
The  mischief  was  that,  unless  the  sum  did  strike  her  as 
absurdly  high,   it  could  not  possibly  lead  by  a  natural 
stage  to  the  remainder  of  the  explanation. 

He  must  contrive  another  path.     For  instance — 


DIFFICULTY  OF  TRUTH-TELLING.  I  I  5 

"There's  been  a  mistake  about  the  so-called  death 
of  Priam  Farll." 

"A  mistake!"  she  would  exclaim,  all  ears  and  eyes. 

Then  he  would  say — 

"Yes.  Priam  Farll  isn't  really  dead.  It's  his  valet 
that's  dead." 

Whereupon  she  would  burst  out — 

"Button  were  his  valet!" 

^Yhereupon  he  would  simply  shake  his  head,  and 
she  would  steam  forwards — 

"Then  who  are  you?" 

Vv'hereupon  he  would  say,  as  calmly  as  he  could — 

"Pm  Priam  Farll.  PIl  tell  you  precisely  how  it  all 
happened." 

Thus  the  talk  might  happen.  Thus  it  would  happen, 
immediately  he  began.  But,  as  at  the  Dean's  door  in 
Dean's  Yard,  so  now,  he  could  not  begin.  He  could 
not  utter  the  necessary  words  aloud.  Spoken  aloud, 
they  would  sound  ridiculous,  incredible,  insane — and 
not  even  Mrs.  Challice  could  reasonably  be  expected  to 
grasp  their  import,  much  less  believe  them. 

"  There's  been  a  mistake  about  the  so-called  death  of 
Priam  Farll." 

"Yes,  a  htmdred  and  forty  thousand  pounds." 

No,  he  could  enunciate  neither  the  one  sentence  nor 
the  other.  There  are  some  truths  so  bizarre  that  they 
make  you  feel  self-conscious  and  guilty  before  you  have 

8* 


1  I  6  BURIED   ALIVE. 

begun  to  state  them;  you  state  them  apologetically;  you 
blush;  you  stammer;  you  have  all  the  air  of  one  who 
does  not  expect  belief;  you  look  a  fool;  you  feel  a  fool; 
and  you  bring  disaster  on  yourself. 

He  perceived  with  the  most  painful  clearness  that 
he  could  never,  never  impart  to  her  the  terrific  secret, 
the  awful  truth.  Great  as  she  was,  the  truth  was 
greater,  and  she  would  never  be  able  to  swallow  it. 

"What  time  is  it?"  she  asked  suddenly. 

"Oh,  you  mustn't  think  about  time,"  he  said,  with 
hasty  concern. 


RESULTS   OF  RAIN. 

When  the  lunch  was  completely  finished  and  the 
grill-room  had  so  far  emptied  that  it  was  inhabited  by 
no  one  except  themselves  and  several  waiters  who  were 
trying  to  force  them  to  depart  by  means  of  thought 
transference  and  uneasy  hovering  round  their  table, 
Priam  Farll  began  to  worry  his  brains  in  order  to  find 
some  sane  way  of  spending  the  afternoon  in  her 
society.  He  wanted  to  keep  her,  but  he  did  not  know 
how  to  keep  her.  He  was  quite  at  a  loss.  Strange 
that  a  man  great  enough  and  brilliant  enough  to  get 
buried  in  Westminster  Abbey  had  not  sufficient  of  the 
small  change  of  cleverness  to  retain  the  company  of  a 


RESULTS   OF  RAIN.  1  I  7 

Mrs.  Alice  Challice!  Yet  so  it  was.  Happily  he  was 
buoyed  up  by  the  thought  that  she  understood. 

"I  must  be  moving  off  home,"  she  said,  putting  her 
gloves  on  slowly;  and  sighed. 

"Let  me  see,"  he  stammered.  "I  think  you  said 
Werter  Road,  Putney?" 

"Yes.     No.  29." 

"Perhaps  you'll  let  me  call  on  you,"  he  ventured. 

"Oh,  do!"  she  encouraged  him. 

Nothing  could  have  been  more  correct,  and  nothing 
more  banal,  than  this  part  of  their  conversation.  He 
certainly  would  call.  He  would  travel  down  to  the 
idyllic  Putney  to-morrow.  He  could  not  lose  such  a 
friend,  such  a  balm,  such  a  soft  cushion,  such  a  com- 
prehending intelligence.  He  would  bit  by  bit  become 
intimate  with  her,  and  perhaps  ultimately  he  might  ar- 
rive at  the  stage  of  being  able  to  tell  her  who  he  was 
with  some  chance  of  being  believed.  Anyhow,  when  he 
did  call — and  he  insisted  to  himself  that  it  should  be 
extremely  soon — he  would  try  another  plan  with  her; 
he  would  carefully  decide  beforehand  just  what  to  say 
and  how  to  say  it.  This  decision  reconciled  him  some- 
what to  a  temporary  parting  from  her. 

So  he  paid  the  bill,  under  her  sagacious,  protesting 
eyes,  and  he  managed  to  conceal  from  those  eyes  the 
precise  amount  of  the  tip;  and  then,  at  the  cloak-room, 
he   furtively   gave   sixpence   to  a  fat  and  wealthy  man 


I  I  8  BURIED  ALIVE. 

who  had  been  watching  over  his  hat  and  stick.  (Highly 
curious,  how  those  comraonsense  orbs  of  hers  made  all 
such  operations  seem  excessively  silly!)  And  at  last 
they  wandered,  in  silence,  through  the  corridors  and 
antechambers  that  led  to  the  courtyard  entrance.  And 
through  the  glass  portals  Priam  Farll  had  a  momentary 
glimpse  of  the  reflection  of  light  on  a  cabman's  wet 
macintosh.  It  was  raining.  It  was  raining  very  heavily 
indeed.  All  was  dry  under  the  glass-roofed  colonnades 
of  the  courtyard,  but  the  rain  rattled  like  kettledrums 
on  that  glass,  and  the  centre  of  the  courtyard  was  a 
pond  in  which  a  few  hansoms  were  splashing  about. 
Everything — the  horses'  coats,  the  cabmen's  hats  and 
capes,  and  the  cabmen's  red  faces,  shone  and  streamed 
in  the  torrential  summer  rain.  It  is  said  that  geography 
makes  history.  In  England,  and  especially  in  London, 
weather  makes  a  good  deal  of  history.  Impossible  to 
brave  that  rain,  except  under  the  severest  pressure  of 
necessity!  They  were  in  shelter,  and  in  shelter  they 
must  remain. 

He  was  glad,  absurdly  and  splendidly  glad. 

"It  can't   last   long,"    she    said,   looking  up  at  the 
black  sky,  which  showed  an  edge  towards  the  east. 

"Suppose  we  go  in  again  and  have  some  tea?"  he 
said. 

Now  they  had  barely  concluded  coffee.   But  she  did 
not  seem  to  mind. 


RESULTS   OF  RAIN.  1  I Q 

"Well,"  she  said,  "it's  always  tea-time  for  me." 

He  saw  a  clock.     "It's  nearly  four,"  he  said. 

Thus  justified  of  the  clock,  in  they  went,  and  sat 
down  in  the  same  seats  which  they  had  occupied  at  the 
commencement  of  the  adventure  in  the  main  lounge. 
Priam  discovered  a  bell-push,  and  commanded  China 
tea  and  muffins.  He  felt  that  he  now,  as  it  were,  had 
an  opportunity  of  making  a  fresh  start  in  life.  He  grew 
almost  gay.  He  could  be  gay  without  sinning  against 
decorum,  for  Mrs.  Challice's  singular  tact  had  avoided 
all  reference  to  deaths  and  funerals. 

And  in  the  pause,  while  he  was  preparing  to  be 
gay,  attractive,  and  in  fact  his  true  self,  she,  calmly 
stirring  China  tea,  shot  a  bolt  which  made  him  see 
stars. 

"It  seems  to  me,"  she  observed,  "that  we  might  go 
farther  and  fare  worse — both  of  us." 

He  genuinely  did  not  catch  the  significance  of  it  in 
the  first  instant,  and  she  saw  that  he  did  not. 

"Oh,"  she  proceeded,  benevolently  and  reassuringly, 
"I  mean  it.  I'm  not  gallivanting  about.  I  mean  that 
if  you  want  my  opinion  I  fancy  we  could  make  a  match 
of  it." 

It  was  at  this  point  that  he  saw  stars.  He  also  saw 
a  faint  and  delicious  blush  on  her  face,  whose  com- 
plexion was  extraordinarily  fresh  and  tender. 


120  BURIED  ALIVE. 

She  sipped  China  tea,  holding  each  finger  wide 
apart  from  the  others. 

He  had  forgotten  the  origin  of  their  acquaintance, 
forgotten  that  each  of  them  was  supposed  to  have  a 
definite  aim  in  view,  forgotten  that  it  was  with  a  pur- 
pose that  they  had  exchanged  photographs.  It  had 
not  occurred  to  him  that  marriage  hung  over  him  hke 
a  sword.  He  perceived  the  sword  now,  heavy  and 
sharp,  and  suspended  by  a  thread  of  appalHng  fragihty. 
He  dodged.  He  did  not  want  to  lose  her,  never  to  see 
her  again;  but  he  dodged. 

"I  couldn't  think "  he  began,  and  stopped. 

"Of  course  it's  a  very  awkward  situation  for  a  man," 
she  went  on,  toying  with  a  muffin.  "I  can  quite  under- 
stand how  you  feel.  And  with  most  folks  you'd  be 
right.  There's  very  few  women  that  can  judge  charac- 
ter, and  if  you  started  to  try  and  settle  something  at 
once  they'd  just  set  you  down  as  a  wrong  'un.  But  I'm 
not  like  that.  I  don't  expect  any  fiddle-faddle.  What 
I  like  is  plain  sense  and  plain  dealing.  We  both  want 
to  get  married,  so  it  would  be  silly  to  pretend  we  didn't, 
wouldn't  it?  And  it  would  be  ridiculous  of  me  to  look 
for  courting  and  a  proposal,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing, 
just  as  if  I'd  never  seen  a  man  in  his  shirt-sleeves.  The 
only  question  is:  shall  we  suit  each  other?  I've  told 
you  what  I  think.     What  do  you  think?" 

She  smiled,  honestly,  kindly,  but  piercingly. 


RESULTS   OF  RAIN.  121 

What  could  he  say?  What  would  you  have  said, 
you  being  a  man?  It  is  easy,  sitting  there  in  your 
chair,  with  no  Mrs.  Alice  Challice  in  front  of  you,  to 
invent  diplomatic  replies;  but  conceive  yourself  in 
Priam's  place!  Besides,  he  did  think  she  would  suit 
him.  And  most  positively  he  could  not  bear  the  pro- 
spect of  seeing  her  pass  out  of  his  life.  He  had  been 
through  that  experience  once,  when  his  hat  blew  oft'  in 
the  Tube;  and  he  did  not  wish  to  repeat  it. 

"Of  course  you've  got  no  home!"  she  said  re- 
flectively, with  such  compassion.  "Suppose  you  come 
down  and  just  have  a  little  peep  at  mine?" 

So  that  evening,  a  suitably  paired  couple  chanced 
into  the  fishmonger's  at  the  corner  of  Werter  Road,  and 
bought  a  bit  of  sole.  At  the  newspaper  shop  next  door 
but  one,  placards  said:  "Impressive  Scenes  at  West- 
minster Abbey,"  "Farll  funeral,  stately  pageant,"  "Great 
painter  laid  to  rest,"  etc. 


122  BURTF.D  ALIVfi. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

A  PUTNEY   MORNING. 

Except  that  there  was  marrying  and  giving  in  mar- 
riage, it  was  just  as  though  he  had  died  and  gone  to 
heaven.  Heaven  is  the  absence  of  worry  and  of  ambi- 
tion. Heaven  is  where  you  want  nothing  you  haven't 
got.  Heaven  is  finahty.  And  this  was  finaUty.  On 
the  September  morning,  after  the  honeymoon  and  the 
setthng  down,  he  arose  leisurely,  long  after  his  wife, 
and,  putting  on  the  puce  dressing-gown  (which  AHce 
much  admired),  he  opened  the  window  wider  and  sur- 
veyed that  part  of  the  universe  which  was  comprised 
in  Werter  Road  and  the  sky  above.  A  sturdy  old 
woman  was  coming  down  the  street  with  a  great  basket 
of  assorted  flowers;  he  took  an  immense  pleasure  in  the 
sight  of  the  old  woman;  the  sight  of  the  old  woman 
thrilled  him.  Why?  Well,  there  was  no  reason,  except 
that  she  was  vigorously  alive,  a  part  of  the  magnificent 
earth.  All  life  gave  him  joy;  all  life  was  beautiful  to 
him.  He  had  his  warm  bath;  the  bathroom  was  not  of 
the  latest  convenience,  but  Alice  could  have  made  a 
four-wheeler   convenient.     As  he  passed  to  and  fro  on 


A  PUTNEY  MORNING.  123 

the  first-floor  he  heard  the  calm,  efficient  activities  below 
stairs.  She  was  busy  in  the  mornings;  her  eyes  would 
seem  to  say  to  him,  "Now,  between  my  uprising  and 
lunch-time  please  don't  depend  on  me  for  intellectual  or 
moral  support.  I  am  on  the  spot,  but  I  am  also  at  the 
wheel  and  must  not  be  disturbed." 

Then  he  descended,  fresh  as  a  boy,  although  the 
promontory  which  prevented  a  direct  vision  of  his  toes 
showed  accretions.  The  front-room  was  a  shrine  for  his 
breakfast.  She  served  it  herself,  in  her  white  apron, 
promptly  on  his  arrival!  Eggs!  Toast!  Coffee!  It 
was  nothing,  that  breakfast;  and  yet  it  was  everything. 
No  breakfast  could  have  been  better.  He  had  probably 
eaten  about  fifteen  thousand  hotel  breakfasts  before 
Alice  taught  him  what  a  real  breakfast  was.  After 
serving  it  she  lingered  for  a  moment,  and  then  handed 
him  the  Daily  Telegraph,  which  had  been  lying  on 
a  chair. 

"Here's  your  Telegraph,"  she  said  cheerfully,  tacitly 
disowning  any  property  or  interest  in  the  Telegraph. 
For  her,  newspapers  were  men's  toys.  She  never  opened 
a  paper,  never  wanted  to  know  what  was  going  on  in 
the  world.  She  was  always  intent  upon  her  own  affairs. 
Politics — and  all  that  business  of  the  mere  machinery 
of  living:  she  perfectly  ignored  it!  She  lived.  She  did 
nothing  but  live.  She  lived  every  hour.  Priam  felt 
truly  that  he  had  at  last  got  down  to  the  bed-rock  of  life. 


124  BURIED  ALIVE. 

There  were  twenty  pages  of  the  Telegraph,  far  more 
matter  than  a  man  could  read  in  a  day  even  if  he  read 
and  read  and  neither  ate  nor  slept.  And  all  of  it  so 
soothing  in  its  rich  variety!  It  gently  lulled  you;  it  was 
the  ideal  companion  for  a  poached  egg;  upstanding 
against  the  coffee-pot,  it  stood  for  the  solidity  of  Eng- 
land in  the  seas.  Priam  folded  it  large;  he  read  all  the 
articles  down  to  the  fold;  then  turned  the  thing  over, 
and  finished  all  of  them.  After  communing  with  the 
Telegraph,  he  communed  with  his  own  secret  nature, 
and  wandered  about,  rolling  a  cigarette.  Ah!  The  first 
cigarette!  His  wanderings  led  him  to  the  kitchen,  or 
at  least  as  far  as  the  threshold  thereof  His  wife  was 
at  work  there.  Upon  every  handle  or  article  that  might 
soil  she  put  soft  brown  paper,  and  in  addition  she  often 
wore  house-gloves;  so  that  her  hands  remained  immacu- 
late; thus  during  the  earlier  hours  of  the  day  the  house, 
especially  in  the  region  of  fireplaces,  had  the  air  of 
being  in  curl-papers. 

"I'm  going  out  now,  Alice,"  he  said,  after  he  had 
drawn  on  his  finely  polished  boots. 

"Very  well,  love,"  she  replied,  preoccupied  with  her 
work.  "Lunch  as  usual."  She  never  demanded  uxo- 
riousness  from  him.  She  had  got  him.  She  was  sure 
of  him.  That  satisfied  her.  Sometimes,  like  a  simple 
woman  who  has  come  into  a  set  of  pearls,  she  would, 


A   PUTNEY  MORNING.  I  25 

as  it  were,  take  him  out  of  his  drawer  and  look  at  him, 
and  put  him  back. 

At  the  gate  he  hesitated  whether  to  turn  to  the  left, 
towards  High  Street,  or  to  the  right,  towards  Oxford 
Road.  He  chose  the  right,  but  he  would  have  enjoyed 
himself  equally  had  he  chosen  the  left.  The  streets 
through  which  he  passed  were  populated  by  domestic 
servants  and  tradesmen's  boys.  He  saw  white-capped 
girls  cleaning  door-knobs  or  windows,  or  running  along 
the  streets,  like  escaped  nuns,  or  staring  in  soft  medita- 
tion from  bedroom  windows.  And  the  tradesmen's  boys 
were  continually  leaping  in  and  out  of  carts,  or  off  and 
on  tricycles,  busily  distributing  food  and  drink,  as 
though  Putney  had  been  a  beleaguered  city.  It  was 
extremely  interesting  and  mysterious — and  what  made 
it  the  most  mysterious  was  that  the  oligarchy  of  superior 
persons  for  whom  these  boys  and  girls  so  assiduously 
worked,  remained  invisible.  He  passed  a  newspaper 
shop  and  found  his  customary  delight  in  the  placards. 
This  morning  the  Daily  Illustrated  announced  nothing 
but:  "Portrait  of  a  boy  aged  12  who  weighs  20  stone." 
And  the  Record  vAm^zxtd.  in  scarlet:  "What  the  German 
said  to  the  King.  Special."  The  Journal  cried :  "  Sur- 
rey's glorious  finish."  And  the  Courier  shouted:  "The 
Unwritten  Law  in  the  United  States.  Another  Scandal." 
Not  for  gold  would  he  have  gone  behind  these 
placards    to    the    organs    themselves;    he  preferred    to 


126  rURlED   ALIVE. 

gather  from  the  placards  alone  what  wonders  of  yester- 
day the  excellent  staid  Telegraph  had  unaccountably 
missed.  But  in  the  Financial  Times  he  saw:  "Cohoon's 
Annual  Meeting.  Stormy  Scenes."  And  he  bought  the 
Financial  Times  and  put  it  into  his  pocket  for  his  wife, 
because  she  had  an  interest  in  Cohoon's  Brewery,  and 
he  conceived  the  possibility  of  her  caring  to  glance  at 
the  report. 


THE  SIMPLE  JOY   OF  LIFE. 

After  crossing  the  South-Western  Railway  he  got 
into  the  Upper  Richmond  Road,  a  thoroughfare  which 
always  diverted  and  amused  him.  It  was  such  a  street 
of  contrasts.  Anyone  could  see  that,  not  many  years 
before,  it  had  been  a  sacred  street,  trod  only  by  feet 
genteel,  and  made  up  of  houses  each  christened  with 
its  own  name  and  each  standing  in  its  own  garden. 
And  now  energetic  persons  had  put  churches  into  it, 
vast  red  things  with  gigantic  bells,  and  large  drapery 
shops,  with  blouses  at  six-and-eleven,  and  court  photo- 
graphers, and  banks,  and  cigar-stores,  and  auctioneers' 
offices.  And  all  kinds  of  omnibuses  ran  along  it.  And 
yet  somehow  it  remained  meditative  and  superior.  In 
every  available  space  gigantic  posters  were  exhibited. 
They  all  had  to  do  with  food  or  pleasure.  There  were 
York  hams  eight  feet  high,  that  a  regiment  could  not 


THE  SIMPLE  JOY    OF  LIFE.  i:?7 

have  eaten  in  a  month;  shaggy  and  ferocious  oxen 
peeping  out  of  monstrous  tea-cups  in  their  anxiety  to 
be  consumed;  spouting  bottles  of  ale  whose  froth  alone 
would  have  floated  the  mail  steamers  pictured  on  an 
adjoining  sheet;  and  forty  different  decoctions  for  im- 
parting strength.  Then  after  a  few  score  yards  of  in- 
vitation to  debauch  there  came,  with  characteristic  ad- 
mirable English  commonsense,  a  cure  for  indigestion, 
so  large  that  it  would  have  given  ease  to  a  mastodon 
who  had  by  inadvertence  swallowed  an  elephant.  And 
then  there  were  the  calls  to  pleasure.  Astonishing,  the 
quantity  of  palaces  that  offered  you  exactly  the  same 
entertainment  twice  over  on  the  same  night!  Astonish- 
ing, the  reliance  on  number  in  this  matter  of  amuse- 
ment! Authenticated  statements  that  a  certain  performer 
had  done  a  certain  thing  in  a  certain  way  a  thousand 
and  one  times  without  interruption  were  stuck  all  over 
the  Upper  Richmond  Road,  apparently  in  the  sure  hope 
that  you  would  rush  to  see  the  thousand  and  second 
performance.  These  performances  were  invariably  styled 
original  and  novel.  All  the  remainder  of  free  wall 
space  was  occupied  by  philanthropists  who  were  ready 
to  give  away  cigarettes  at  the  nominal  price  of  a  penny 
a  packet. 

Priam  Farll  never  tired  of  the  phantasmagoria  of 
Upper  Richmond  Road.  The  interminable,  intermittent 
vision  of  food  dead  and  alive,  and  of  performers  per- 


128  BURIED  ALIVE, 

forming  the  same  performance  from  everlasting  to  ever- 
lasting, and  of  millions  and  millions  of  cigarettes  as- 
cending from  the  mouths  of  handsome  young  men  in 
incense  to  heaven — this  rare  vision,  of  which  in  all  his 
wanderings  he  had  never  seen  the  like,  had  the  singular 
effect  of  lulling  his  soul  into  a  profound  content.  Not 
once  did  he  arrive  at  the  end  of  the  vision.  No!  when 
he  reached  Barnes  Station  he  could  see  the  vision  still 
stretching  on  and  on;  but,  filled  to  the  brim,  he  would 
get  into  an  omnibus  and  return.  The  omnibus  awoke 
him  to  other  issues:  the  omnibus  was  an  antidote.  In 
the  omnibus  cleanliness  was  nigh  to  godliness.  On  one 
pane  a  soap  was  extolled,  and  on  another  the  exordium, 
"For  this  is  a  true  saying  and  worthy  of  all  accepta- 
tion," was  followed  by  the  statement  of  a  religious 
dogma;  while  on  another  pane  was  an  urgent  appeal 
not  to  do  in  the  omnibus  what  you  would  not  do  in  a 
drawing-room.  Yes,  Priam  Farll  had  seen  the  world, 
but  he  had  never  seen  a  city  so  incredibly  strange,  so 
packed  with  curious  and  rare  psychological  interest  as 
London.  And  he  regretted  that  he  had  not  discovered 
London  earlier  in  his  lifelong  search  after  romance. 

At  the  corner  of  the  High  Street  he  left  the  omni- 
bus and  stopped  a  moment  to  chat  with  his  tobacconist. 
His  tobacconist  was  a  stout  man  in  a  white  apron,  who 
stood  for  ever  behind  a  counter  and  sold  tobacco  to  the 
most  respected  residents  of  Putney.     All  his  ideas  were 


THE  SIMPLE  JOY  OF  LIFE.  I  29 

connected  either  with  tobacco  or  with  Putney.  A  murder 
in  the  Strand  to  that  tobacconist  was  less  than  the 
breakdown  of  a  motor  bus  opposite  Putney  Station;  and 
a  change  of  government  less  than  a  change  of  pro- 
gramme at  the  Putney  Empire.  A  rather  pessimistic 
tobacconist,  not  inclined  to  believe  in  a  First  Cause, 
until  one  day  a  drunken  man  smashed  Salmon  and 
Gluckstein's  window  down  the  High  Street,  whereupon 
his  opinion  of  Providence  went  up  for  several  days! 
Priam  enjoyed  talking  to  him,  though  the  tobacconist 
was  utterly  impervious  to  ideas  and  never  gave  out 
ideas.  This  morning  the  tobacconist  was  at  his  door. 
At  the  other  corner  was  the  sturdy  old  woman  whom 
Priam  had  observed  from  his  window.    She  sold  flowers. 

"Fine  old  woman,  that!"  said  Priam  heartily,  after 
he  and  the  tobacconist  had  agreed  upon  the  fact  that 
it  was  a  glorious  morning. 

"She  used  to  be  at  the  opposite  corner  by  the  sta- 
tion until  last  May  but  one,  when  the  police  shifted 
her,"  said  the  tobacconist. 

"Why  did  the  police  shift  her?"  asked  Priam. 

"I  don't  know  as  I  can  tell  you,"  said  the  tobac- 
conist.    "But  I  remember  her  this  twelve  year." 

"I  only  noticed  her  this  morning,"  said  Priam.  "I 
saw  her  from  my  bedroom  window,  coming  down  the 
Werter  Road.  I  said  to  myself,  'She's  the  finest  old 
woman  I  ever  saw  in  my  life!'" 

Buried  Alive.  9 


130  BURIED   ALIVE. 

"Did  you  now!"  murmured  the  tobacconist.  "She's 
rare  and  dirty." 

"I  Hke  her  to  be  dirty,"  said  Priam  stoutly.  "She 
ought  to  be  dirty.  She  wouldn't  be  the  same  if  she 
were  clean." 

"I  don't  hold  with  dirt,"  said  the  tobacconist  calmly. 
"She'd  be  better  if  she  had  a  bath  of  a  Saturday  night 
Hke  other  folks." 

"Well,"  said  Priam,  "I  want  an  ounce  of  the  usual." 

"Thank  you,  sir,"  said  the  tobacconist,  putting 
down  three-halfpence  change  out  of  sixpence  as  Priam 
thanked  him  for  the  packet. 

Nothing  whatever  in  such  a  dialogue!  Yet  Priam 
left  the  shop  with  a  distinct  feeling  that  life  was  good. 
And  he  plunged  into  High  Street,  lost  himself  in  crowds 
of  perambulators  and  nice  womanly  women  who  were 
bustling  honestly  about  in  search  of  food  or  raiment. 
Many  of  them  carried  little  red  books  full  of  long  lists 
of  things  which  they  and  their  admirers  and  the  off- 
spring of  mutual  affection  had  eaten  or  would  shortly 
eat.  In  the  High  Street  all  was  luxury:  not  a  necessary 
in  the  street.  Even  the  bakers'  shops  were  a  mass  of 
sultana  and  Berlin  pancakes.  Illuminated  calendars, 
gramophones,  corsets,  picture  postcards,  Manilla  cigars, 
bridge-scorers,  chocolate,  exotic  fruit,  and  commodious 
mansions — these  seemed  to  be  the  principal  objects 
offered  for  sale  in  High  Street.     Priam  bought   a  six- 


COLLAPSE   OF  THE  PUTNEY  SYSTEM.  I3I 

penny  edition  of  Herbert  Spencer's  Essays  for  fourpence- 
halfpenny,  and  passed  on  to  Putney  Bridge,  whose  noble 
arches  divided  a  first  storey  of  vans  and  omnibuses 
from  a  ground-floor  of  barges  and  racing  eights.  And 
he  gazed  at  the  broad  river  and  its  hanging  gardens, 
and  dreamed;  and  was  wakened  by  the  roar  of  an 
electric  train  shooting  across  the  stream  on  a  red  cause- 
way a  few  yards  below  him.  And,  miles  off,  he  could 
descry  the  twin  towers  of  the  Crystal  Palace,  more  mar- 
vellous than  mosques! 

"Astounding!"  he  murmured  joyously.  He  had 
not  a  care  in  the  world;  and  Putney  was  all  that  Alice 
had  painted  it.  In  due  time,  when  bells  had  pealed 
to  right  and  to  left  of  him,  he  went  home  to  her. 


COLLAPSE   OF   THE  PUTNEY   SYSTEM. 

Now,  just  at  the  end  of  lunch,  over  the  last  stage 
of  which  they  usually  sat  a  long  time,  Alice  got  up 
quickly,  in  the  midst  of  her  Stilton,  and,  going  to  the 
mantelpiece,  took  a  letter  therefrom. 

"I  wish  you'd  look  at  that,  Henry,"  she  said,  hand- 
ing him  the  letter.  "It  came  this  morning,  but  of  course 
I  can't  be  bothered  with  that  sort  of  thing  in  the  morn- 
ing.    So  I  put  it  aside." 

He  accepted  the  letter,  and  unfolded  it  with  the 
professional  all-knowing  air  which  even  the  biggest  male 


132  BURIED   AUVE. 

fool  will  quite  successfully  put  on  in  the  presence  of  a 
woman  if  consulted  about  business.  When  he  had  un- 
folded the  thing — it  was  typed  on  stiff,  expensive,  quarto 
paper — he  read  it.  In  the  lives  of  beings  like  Priam 
Farll  and  Alice  a  letter  such  as  that  letter  is  a  terrible 
event,  unique,  earth-arresting;  simple  recipients  are  apt, 
on  receiving  it,  to  imagine  that  the  Christian  era  has 
come  to  an  end.  But  tens  of  thousands  of  similar 
letters  are  sent  out  from  the  City  every  day,  and  the 
City  thinks  nothing  of  them. 

The  letter  was  about  Cohoon's  Brewery  Company, 
Limited,  and  it  was  signed  by  a  firm  of  solicitors.  It 
referred  to  the  verbatim  report,  which  it  said  would  be 
found  in  the  financial  papers,  of  the  annual  meeting  of 
the  company  held  at  the  Cannon  Street  Hotel  on  the 
previous  day,  and  to  the  exceedingly  unsatisfactory 
nature  of  the  Chairman's  statement.  It  regretted  the 
absence  of  Mrs.  Alice  Challice  (her  change  of  condition 
had  not  yet  reached  the  heart  of  Cohoon's)  from  the 
meeting,  and  asked  her  whether  she  would  be  prepared 
to  support  the  action  of  a  committee  which  had  been 
formed  to  eject  the  existing  board  and  which  had 
already  a  following  of  385,000  votes.  It  finished  by 
asserting  that  unless  the  committee  was  immediately 
lifted  to  absolute  power  the  company  would  be  quite 
ruined. 

Priam  re-read  the  letter  aloud. 


COLLAPSE   OF   THE   PUTNEY   SYSTEM.  I  33 

"What  does  it  all  mean?"  asked  Alice  quietly. 

"Well,"  said  he,  "that's  what  it  means." 

"Does  it  mean ?"  she  began. 

"By  Jove!"  he  exclaimed,  "I  forgot.  I  saw  some- 
thing on  a  placard  this  morning  about  Cohoon's,  and  I 
thought  it  might  interest  you,  so  I  bought  it."  So  say- 
ing, he  drew  from  his  pocket  the  Financial  Times, 
which  he  had  entirely  forgotten.  There  it  was:  a 
column  and  a  quarter  of  the  Chairman's  speech,  and 
nearly  two  columns  of  stormy  scenes.  The  Chairman 
was  the  Marquis  of  Drumgaldy,  but  his  rank  had  ap- 
parently not  shielded  him  from  the  violence  of  expletives 
such  as  "Liar!"  "Humbug!"  and  even  "Rogue!"  The 
Marquis  had  merely  stated,  with  every  formula  of 
apology,  that,  owing  to  the  extraordinary  depreciation 
in  licensed  property,  the  directors  had  not  felt  justified 
in  declaring  any  dividend  at  all  on  the  Ordinary  Shares 
of  the  company.  He  had  made  this  quite  simple  asser- 
tion, and  instantly  a  body  of  shareholders,  less  reason- 
able and  more  avaricious  even  than  shareholders  usually 
are,  had  begun  to  turn  the  historic  hall  of  the  Cannon 
Street  Hotel  into  a  bear  garden.  One  might  have 
imagined  that  the  sole  aim  of  brewery  companies  was 
to  make  money,  and  that  the  patriotism  of  old-world 
brewers,  that  patriotism  which  impelled  them  to  supply 
an  honest  English  beer  to  the  honest  English  working- 


134  BURIED   ALIVE. 

man  at  a  purely  nominal  price,  was  scorned  and  for- 
gotten. One  was,  indeed,  forced  to  imagine  this.  In 
vain  the  Marquis  pointed  out  that  the  shareholders  had 
received  a  fifteen  per  cent,  dividend  for  years  and  years 
past,  and  that  really,  for  once  in  a  way,  they  ought  to 
be  prepared  to  sacrifice  a  temporary  advantage  for  the 
sake  of  future  prosperity.  The  thought  of  those  regular 
high  dividends  gave  rise  to  no  gratitude  in  shareholding 
hearts;  it  seemed  merely  to  render  them  the  more 
furious.  The  baser  passions  had  been  let  loose  in  the 
Cannon  Street  Hotel.  The  directors  had  possibly  been 
expecting  the  baser  passions,  for  a  posse  of  policemen 
was  handy  at  the  door,  and  one  shareholder,  to  save 
him  from  having  the  blood  of  Marquises  on  his  soul, 
was  ejected.  Ultimately,  according  to  the  picturesque 
phrases  of  the  Financial  Times  report,  the  meeting 
broke  up  in  confusion. 

"How  much  have  you  got  in  Cohoon's?"  Priam 
asked  Alice,  after  they  had  looked  through  the  report 
together. 

"All  I  have  is  in  Cohoon's,"  said  she,  "except  this 
house.  Father  left  me  it  like  that.  He  always  said 
there  was  nothing  like  a  brewery.  I've  heard  him  say 
many  and  many  a  time  a  brewery  was  better  than  con- 
sols. I  think  there's  200  £5  shares.  Yes,  that's  it. 
But  of  course  they're  worth  much  more  than  that. 
They're  worth   about  £12    each.      All   I  know   is   they 


COLLAPSE   OF  THE  PUTNEY  SYSTEM.  I  35 

bring  me  in  £150  a  year  as  regular  as  the  clock. 
What's  that  there,  after  'broke  up  in  confusion?'" 

She  pointed  with  her  finger  to  a  paragraph,  and  he 
read  in  a  low  voice  the  fluctuations  of  Cohoon's  Ordinary 
Shares  during  the  afternoon.  They  had  finished  at 
£6  5 J.  Mrs.  Henry  Leek  had  lost  over  £1,000  in  about 
half-a-day. 

"They've  always  brought  me  in  £150  a  year,"  she 
insisted,  as  though  she  had  been  saying:  "It's  always 
been  Christmas  Day  on  the  25th  of  December,  and  of 
course  it  will  be  the  same  this  year." 

"It  doesn't  look  as  if  they'd  bring  you  in  anything 
this  time,"  said  he. 

"Oh,  but  Henry!"  she  protested. 

Beer  had  failed!  That  was  the  truth  of  it.  Beer 
had  failed.  Who  would  have  guessed  that  beer  could 
fail  in  England?  The  wisest,  the  most  prudent  men  in 
Lombard  Street  had  put  their  trust  in  beer,  as  the  last 
grand  bulwark  of  the  nation;  and  even  beer  had  failed. 
The  foundations  of  England's  greatness  were,  if  not 
gone,  going.  Insufficient  to  argue  bad  management,  in- 
discreet purchases  of  licences  at  inflated  prices!  In  the 
excellent  old  days  a  brewery  would  stand  an  indefinite 
amount  of  bad  management!  Times  were  changed.  The 
British  workman,  caught  in  a  wave  of  temperance,  could 
no  longer  be  relied  upon  to  drink!  It  was  the  crown 
of  his  sins  against  society.     Trade  unions  were  nothing 


136  BURIED  ALIVE. 

to  this  latest  caprice  of  his,  which  spread  desolation  in 
a  thousand  genteel  homes.  Alice  wondered  what  her 
father  would  have  said,  had  he  lived.  On  the  whole, 
she  was  glad  that  he  did  not  happen  to  be  alive.  The 
shock  to  him  would  have  been  too  rude.  The  floor 
seemed  to  be  giving  way  under  Alice,  melting  into  a 
sort  of  bog  that  would  swallow  up  her  and  her  husband. 
For  years,  without  any  precise  information,  but  merely 
by  instinct,  she  had  felt  that  England,  beneath  the  sur- 
face, was  not  quite  the  island  it  had  been — and  here 
was  the  awful  proof. 

She  gazed  at  her  husband,  as  a  wife  ought  to  gaze 
at  her  husband  in  a  crisis.  His  thoughts  were  much 
vaguer  than  hers,  his  thoughts  about  money  being  al- 
ways extremely  vague. 

"Suppose  you  went  up  to  the  City  and  saw  Mr. 
What's-his-name?"  she  suggested,  meaning  the  signatoiy 
of  the  letter. 

"Me!" 

It  was  a  cry  of  the  soul  aghast,  a  cry  drawn  out  of 
him  sharply,  by  a  most  genuine  cruel  alarm.  Him  to 
go  up  to  the  City  to  interview  a  solicitor!  Why,  the 
poor  dear  woman  must  be  demented!  He  could  not 
have  done  it  for  a  million  pounds.  The  thought  of  it 
made  him  sick,  raising  the  whole  of  his  lunch  to  his 
throat,  as  by  some  sinister  magic. 

She  saw  and  translated  the  look  on  his  face.    It  was 


COLLAPSE   OF  THE  PUTNEY  SYSTEM.  137 

a  look  of  horror.  And  at  once  she  made  excuses  for 
him  to  herself.  At  once  she  said  to  herself  that  it  was 
no  use  pretending  that  her  Henry  was  like  other  men. 
He  was  not.  He  was  a  dreamer.  He  was,  at  times, 
amazingly  peculiar.  But  he  was  her  Henry.  In  any 
other  man  than  her  Henry  a  hesitation  to  take  charge 
of  his  wife's  financial  affairs  would  have  been  ridiculous; 
it  would  have  been  effeminate.  But  Henry  was  Henry. 
She  was  gradually  learning  that  truth.  He  was  adorable; 
but  he  was  Henry.  With  magnificent  strength  of  mind 
she  collected  herself 

"No,"  she  said  cheerfully.  "As  they're  my  shares, 
perhaps  I'd  better  go.  Unless  we  both  go!"  She  en- 
countered his  eye  again,  and  added  quietly:  "No,  I'll 
go  alone." 

He  sighed  his  relief  He  could  not  help  sighing  his 
relief. 

And,  after  meticulously  washing-up  and  straighten- 
ing, she  departed,  and  Priam  remained  solitary  with  his 
ideas  about  married  life  and  the  fiscal  question. 

Alice  was  assuredly  the  very  mirror  of  discretion. 
Never,  since  that  unanswered  query  as  to  savings  at  the 
Grand  Babylon,  had  she  subjected  him  to  any  inquisi- 
tion concerning  money.  Never  had  she  talked  of  her 
own  means,  save  in  casual  phrase  now  and  then  to 
assure  him  that  there  was  enough.  She  had  indeed 
refused    banknotes    diffidently    offered   to   her  by   him. 


138  BURIED  ALIVE. 

telling  him  to  keep  them  by  him  till  need  of  them  arose. 
Never  had  she  discoursed  of  her  own  past  life,  nor  led 
him  on  to  discourse  of  his.  She  was  one  of  those  wo- 
men for  whom  neither  the  past  nor  the  future  seems  to 
exist — they  are  always  so  occupied  with  the  important 
present.  He  and  she  had  both  of  them  relied  on  their 
judgment  of  character  as  regarded  each  other's  worthi- 
ness and  trustworthiness.  And  he  was  the  last  man  in 
the  world  to  be  a  chancellor  of  the  exchequer.  To  him, 
money  was  a  quite  uninteresting  token  that  had  to  pass 
through  your  hands.  He  had  always  had  enough  of  it. 
He  had  always  had  too  much  of  it.  Even  at  Putney 
he  had  had  too  much  of  it.  The  better  part  of  Henry 
Leek's  two  hundred  pounds  had  remained  in  his  pockets, 
and  under  his  own  will  he  had  his  pound  a  week,  of 
which  he  never  spent  more  than  a  few  shillings.  His 
distractions  were  tobacco  (which  cost  him  about  two- 
pence a  day),  walking  about  and  enjoying  colour  effects 
and  the  oddities  of  the  streets  (which  cost  him  nearly 
nought),  and  reading:  there  were  three  shops  of  Putney 
where  all  that  is  greatest  in  literature  could  be  bought 
for  fourpence-halfpenny  a  volume.  Do  what  he  could, 
he  could  not  read  away  more  than  ninepence  a  week. 
He  was  positively  accumulating  money.  You  may  say 
that  he  ought  to  have  compelled  Alice  to  accept  money. 
The  idea  never  occurred  to  him.  In  his  scheme  of 
things  money  had  not  been  a  matter  of  sufficient  urgency 


COLLAPSE   OF  THE  PUTNEY  SYSTEM.  i3Q 

to  necessitate  an  argument  with  one's  wife.  She  was 
ahvays  welcome  to  all  that  he  had. 

And  now  suddenly,  money  acquired  urgency  in  his 
eyes.  It  was  most  disturbing.  He  was  not  frightened: 
he  was  merely  disturbed.  If  he  had  ever  known  the 
sensation  of  wanting  money  and  not  being  able  to  ob- 
tain it,  he  would  probably  have  been  frightened.  But 
this  sensation  was  unfamiliar  to  him.  Not  once  in  his 
whole  career  had  he  hesitated  to  change  gold  from  fear 
that  the  end  of  gold  was  at  hand. 

All  kinds  of  problems  crowded  round  him. 

He  went  out  for  a  stroll  to  escape  the  problems. 
But  they  accompanied  him.  He  walked  through  exactly 
the  same  streets  as  had  delighted  him  in  the  morning. 
And  they  had  ceased  to  delight  him.  This  surely  could 
not  be  ideal  Putney  that  he  was  in!  It  must  be  some 
other  place  of  the  same  name.  The  mismanagement  of 
a  brewery  a  hundred  and  fifty  miles  from  London;  the 
failure  of  the  British  working-man  to  drink  his  customary 
pints  in  several  scattered  scores  of  public-houses,  had 
most  unaccountably  knocked  the  bottom  out  of  the 
Putney  system  of  practical  philosophy.  Putney  posters 
were  now  merely  disgusting,  Putney  trade  gross  and 
futile,  the  tobacconist  a  narrow-minded  and  stupid 
bourgeois;  and  so  on. 

Alice  and  he  met  on  their  doorstep,  each  in  the  act 
of  pulling  out  a  latchkey. 


140  BURIED   ALIVE. 

"Oh!"  she  said,  when  they  were  inside,  "it's  done 
for!  There's  no  mistake — it's  done  for!  We  sha'n't 
get  a  penny  this  year,  not  one  penny!  And  he  doesn't 
think  there'll  be  anything  next  year  either!  And  the 
shares  '11  go  down  yet,  he  says.  I  never  heard  of  such 
a  thing  in  all  my  life!     Did  you?" 

He  admitted  sympathetically  that  he  had  not. 

After  she  had  been  upstairs  and  come  down  again 
her  mood  suddenly  changed.  "Well,"  she  smiled, 
"whether  we  get  anything  or  not,  it's  tea-time.  So  we'll 
have  tea.  I've  no  patience  with  worrying.  I  said  I 
should  make  pastry  after  tea,  and  J  will  too.  See  if  I 
don't!" 

The  tea  was  perhaps  slightly  more  elaborate  than 
usual. 

After  tea  he  heard  her  singing  in  the  kitchen.  And 
he  was  moved  to  go  and  look  at  her.  There  she  was, 
with  her  sleeves  turned  back,  and  a  large  pinafore  apron 
over  her  rich  bosom,  kneading  flour.  He  would  have 
liked  to  approach  her  and  kiss  her.  But  he  never 
could  accomplish  feats  of  that  kind  at  unusual  moments. 

"Oh!"  she  laughed.  "You  can  look!  I'm  not 
worrying.     I've  no  patience  with  worrying." 

Later  in  the  afternoon  he  went  out;  rather  like  a 
person  who  has  reasons  for  leaving  inconspicuously. 
He  had  made  a  great,  a  critical  resolve.  He  passed 
furtively  down  Werter  Road  into  the  High  Street,  and 


COLLAPSE  OF  THE  PUTNEY  SYSTEM.  14! 

then  stood  a  moment  outside  Stawley's  stationery  shop, 
which  is  also  a  hbrary,  an  emporium  of  leather-bags, 
and  an  artists'- colourman's.  He  entered  Stawley's  blush- 
ing, trembling — he  a  man  of  fifty  who  could  not  see  his 
own  toes — and  asked  for  certain  tubes  of  colour.  An 
energetic  young  lady  who  seemed  to  know  all  about  the 
graphic  arts  endeavoured  to  sell  to  him  a  magnificent 
and  complicated  box  of  paints,  which  opened  out  into 
an  easel  and  a  stool,  and  contained  a  palette  of  a  shape 
preferred  by  the  late  Edwin  Long,  R.A.,  a  selection  of 
colours  which  had  been  approved  by  the  late  Lord 
Leighton,  P.R.A.,  and  a  patent  drying-oil  which  (she 
said)  had  been  used  by  Whistler.  Priam  Farll  got 
away  from  the  shop  without  this  apparatus  for  the  con- 
fection of  masterpieces,  but  he  did  not  get  away  without 
a  sketching-box  which  he  had  had  no  intention  of  buy- 
ing. The  young  lady  was  too  energetic  for  him.  He 
was  afraid  of  being  too  curt  with  her  lest  she  should 
turn  on  him  and  tell  him  that  pretence  was  useless — 
she  knew  he  was  Priam  Farll.  He  felt  guilty,  and  he 
felt  that  he  looked  guilty.  As  he  hurried  along  the 
Pligh  Street  towards  the  river  with  the  paint-box  it  ap- 
peared to  him  that  policemen  observed  him  inimically 
and  cocked  their  helmets  at  him,  as  who  should  say: 
"See  here;  this  won't  do.  You're  supposed  to  be  in 
Westminster  Abbey.  You'll  be  locked  up  if  you're  too 
brazen." 


142  r.URIED  ALIVE. 

The  tide  was  out.  He  sneaked  down  to  the  gravelly 
shore  a  little  above  the  steamer  pier,  and  hid  himself 
between  the  piles,  glancing  around  him  in  a  scared 
fashion.  He  might  have  been  about  to  commit  a 
crime.  Then  he  opened  the  sketch-box,  and  oiled  the 
palette,  and  tried  the  elasticity  of  the  brushes  on  his 
hand.  And  he  made  a  sketch  of  the  scene  before 
him.  He  did  it  very  quickly — in  less  than  half-an-hour. 
He  had  made  thousands  of  such  colour  "notes"  in  his 
life,  and  he  would  never  part  with  any  of  them.  He 
had  always  hated  to  part  with  his  notes.  Doubtless 
his  cousin  Duncan  had  them  now,  if  Duncan  had  dis- 
covered his  address  in  Paris,  as  Duncan  probably  had. 

When  it  was  finished,  he  inspected  the  sketch,  half 
shutting  his  eyes  and  holding  it  about  three  feet  off. 
It  was  good.  Except  for  a  few  pencil  scrawls  done  in 
sheer  absent-mindedness  and  hastily  destroyed,  this  was 
the  first  sketch  he  had  made  since  the  death  of  Henry 
Leek.  But  it  was  very  good.  "No  mistake  who's  done 
that!"  he  murmured;  and  added:  "That's  the  devil  of 
it.  Any  expert  would  twig  it  in  a  minute.  There's 
only  one  man  that  could  have  done  it.  I  shall  have  to 
do  something  worse  than  that!"  He  shut  up  the  box 
and  with  a  bang  as  an  amative  couple  came  into  sight. 
He  need  not  have  done  so,  for  the  couple  vanished  in- 
stantly in  deep  disgust  at  being  robbed  of  their  re- 
treat between  the  piles. 


COLLAPSE   OF  THE  PUTNEY  SYSTEM.  I  43 

Alice  was  nearing  the  completion  of  pastry  when  he 
returned  in  the  dusk;  he  smelt  the  delicious  proof. 
Creeping  quietly  upstairs,  he  deposited  his  brushes  in 
an  empty  attic  at  the  top  of  the  house.  Then  he 
washed  his  hands  with  especial  care  to  i-emove  all  odour 
of  paiut.  And  at  dinner  he  endeavoured  to  put  on  the 
mien  of  innocence. 

She  was  cheerful,  but  it  was  the  cheerfulness  of 
determined  effort.  They  naturally  talked  of  the  situa- 
tion. It  appeared  that  she  had  a  reserve  of  money  in 
the  bank — as  much  as  would  suffice  her  for  quite  six 
months.  He  told  her  with  false  buoyancy  that  there 
need  never  be  the  slightest  difficulty  as  to  money;  he 
had  money,  and  he  could  always  earn  more. 

"If  you  think  I'm  going  to  let  you  go  into  an- 
other situation,"  she  said,  "you're  mistaken.  That's 
all."     And  her  lips  were  firm. 

This  staggered  him.  He  never  could  remember  for 
more  than  half-an-hour  at  a  time  that  he  was  a  retired 
valet.  And  it  was  decidedly  not  her  practice  to  re- 
mind him  of  the  fact.  The  notion  of  himself  in  a  situa- 
tion as  valet  was  half  ridiculous  and  half  tragical.  He 
could  no  more  be  a  valet  than  he  could  be  a  stock- 
broker or  a  wire-walker. 

"I  wasn't  thinking  of  that,"  he  stammered. 

"Then  what  were  you  thinking  of?"  she  asked. 

"Oh!   I  don't  know!"  he  said  vaguely. 


144  BURIED  ALIVE. 

"Because  those  things  they  advertise — home-work, 
envelope  addressing,  or  selHng  gramophones  on  commis- 
sion— they're  no  good,  you  know!" 

He  shuddered. 

Tlie  next  morning  he  bought  a  36  X  24  canvas, 
and  more  brushes  and  tubes,  and  surreptitiously  intro- 
duced them  into  the  attic.  Happily  it  was  the  char- 
woman's day  and  Alice  was  busy  enough  to  ignore  him. 
With  an  old  table  and  the  tray  out  of  a  travelling- 
trunk,  he  arranged  a  substitute  for  an  easel,  and  began 
to  try  to  paint  a  bad  picture  from  his  sketch.  But  in 
a  quarter  of  an  hour  he  discovered  that  he  was  ex- 
actly as  fitted  to  paint  a  bad  picture  as  to  be  a  valet. 
He  could  not  sentimentalise  the  tones,  nor  falsify  the 
values.  He  simply  could  not;  the  attempt  to  do  so  an- 
noyed him.  All  men  are  capable  of  stooping  beneath 
their  highest  selves,  and  in  several  directions  Priam 
Farll  could  have  stooped.  But  not  on  canvas!  He 
could  only  produce  his  best.  He  could  only  render 
nature  as  he  saw  nature.  And  it  was  instinct,  rather 
than  conscience,  that  prevented  him  from  stooping. 

In  three  days,  during  which  he  kept  Alice  out  of 
the  attic  partly  by  lies  and  partly  by  locking  the  door, 
the  picture  was  finished;  and  he  had  forgotten  all  about 
everything  except  his  profession.  He  had  become  a 
different  man,  a  very  excited  man. 


COLLAPSE  OF  THE  PUTNEY  SYSTEM.  1 45 

"By  Jove,"  he  exclaimed,  surveying  the  picture,  "I 
can  paint!" 

Artists  do  occasionally  soliloquise  in  this  way. 

The  picture  was  dazzling !  What  atmosphere !  What 
poetry!  And  what  profound  fidelity  to  nature's  facts! 
It  was  precisely  such  a  picture  as  he  was  in  the  habit 
of  selling  for  £800  or  a  £1,000,  before  his  burial  in 
Westminster  Abbey!  Indeed,  the  trouble  was  that  it 
had  "Priam  Farll"  written  all  over  it,  just  as  the  sketch 
had! 


Buried  Alive.  lO 


146  UURIED   ALIVF,. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

THE    CONFESSION. 

That  evening  he  was  very  excited,  and  he  seemed 
to  take  no  thought  to  disguise  his  excitement.  The 
fact  was,  he  could  not  have  disguised  it,  even  if  he  had 
tried.  Tlie  fever  of  artistic  creation  was  upon  him — 
all  the  old  desires  and  the  old  exhausting  joys.  His 
genius  had  been  lying  idle,  like  a  lion  in  a  thicket,  and 
now  it  had  sprung  forth  ravening.  For  months  he  had 
not  handled  a  brush;  for  months  his  mind  had  de- 
liberately avoided  the  question  of  painting,  being  con- 
tent with  the  observation  only  of  beauty.  A  week  ago, 
if  he  had  deliberately  asked  himself  whether  he  would 
ever  paint  again,  he  might  have  answered,  "Perhaps 
not."  Such  is  man's  ignorance  of  his  own  nature! 
And  now  the  lion  of  his  genius  was  standing  over  him, 
its  paw  on  his  breast,  and  making  a  great  noise. 

He  saw  that  the  last  few  months  had  been  merely 
an  interlude,  that  he  would  be  forced  to  paint — or  go 
mad;  and  that  nothing  else  mattered.  He  saw  also 
that  he  could  only  paint  in  one  way — Priam  Farll's 
way.     If  it   was   discovered   that  Priam  Farll   was   not 


THE   CONFESSION.  I47 

buried  in  Westminster  Abbey;  if  there  was  a  scandal, 
and  legal  unpleasantness — well,  so  much  the  worse! 
But  he  must  paint. 

Not  for  money,  mind  you!  Incidentally,  of  course, 
he  would  earn  money.  But  he  had  already  quite  for- 
gotten that  life  has  its  financial  aspect. 

So  in  the  sitting-room  in  Werter  Road,  he  walked 
uneasily  to  and  fro,  squeezing  between  the  table  and 
the  sideboard,  and  then  skirting  the  fireplace  where 
Alice  sat  with  a  darning  apparatus  upon  her  knees, 
and  her  spectacles  on — she  wore  spectacles  when  she 
had  to  look  fixedly  at  very  dark  objects.  The  room 
was  ugly  in  a  pleasant  Putneyish  way,  with  a  couple  of 
engravings  after  B.  W.  Leader,  R.A.,  a  too  realistic 
wall-paper,  hot  brown  furniture  with  ribbed  legs,  a 
carpet  with  the  characteristics  of  a  retired  governess 
who  has  taken  to  drink,  and  a  black  cloud  on  the 
ceiling  over  the  incandescent  burners.  Happily  these 
surroundings  did  not  annoy  him.  They  did  not  annoy 
him  because  he  never  saw  them.  When  his  eyes  were 
not  resting  on  beautiful  things,  they  were  not  in  this 
world  of  reality  at  all.  His  sole  idea  about  house- 
furnishing  was  an  easy-chair. 

"Harry,"  said  his  wife,  "don't  you  think  you'd 
better  sit  down?" 

The  calm  voice  of  commonsense  stopped  him  in  his 
circular  tour.     He  glanced  at  Alice,  and  she,  removing 


148  BURIED  ALIVK. 

her  spectacles,  glanced  at  him.  The  seal  on  his  watch- 
chain  dangled  free.  He  had  to  talk  to  someone,  and 
his  wife  was  there — not  only  the  most  convenient  but 
the  most  proper  person  to  talk  to.  A  tremendous  im- 
pulse seized  him  to  tell  her  everything;  she  would  under- 
stand; she  always  did  understand;  and  she  never 
allowed  herself  to  be  startled.  The  most  singular  oc- 
currences, immediately  they  touched  her,  were  somehow 
transformed  into  credible  daily,  customary  events.  Thus 
the  disaster  of  the  brewery!  She  had  accepted  it  as 
though  the  ruins  of  breweries  were  a  spectacle  to  be 
witnessed  at  every  street-corner. 

Yes,  he  should  tell  her.  Three  minutes  ago  he  had 
no  intention  of  telling  her,  or  anyone,  anything.  He 
decided  in  an  instant.  To  tell  her  his  secret  would  lead 
up  naturally  to  the  picture  which  he  had  just  finished. 

"I  say,  Alice,"  he  said,  "I  want  to  talk  to  you." 

"Well,"  she  said,  'T  wish  you'd  talk  to  me  sitting 
down.  I  don't  know  what's  come  over  you  this  last 
day  or  two." 

He  sat  down.  He  did  not  feel  really  intimate  VBth 
her  at  that  moment.  And  their  marriage  seemed  to 
him,  in  a  way,  artificial,  scarcely  a  fact.  He  did  not 
know  that  it  takes  years  to  accomplish  full  intimacy  be- 
tween husband  and  wife. 

"You  know,"  he  said,  "Henry  Leek  isn't  my  real 
name." 


THE  CONFESSION.  149 

"Oh,  isn't  it?"  she  said.    "What  does  that  matter?" 

She  was  not  in  the  least  surprised  to  hear  that 
Henry  Leek  was  not  his  real  name.  She  was  a  wise 
woman,  and  knew  the  strangeness  of  the  world.  And 
she  had  married  him  simply  because  he  was  himself, 
because  he  existed  in  a  particular  manner  (whose  charm 
for  her  she  could  not  have  described)  from  hour  to 
hour. 

"So  long  as  you  haven't  committed  a  murder  or 
anything,"  she  added,  with  her  tranquil  smile. 

"My  real  name  is  Priam  Farll,"  he  said  gruffly.  The 
gruffness  was  caused  by  timidity. 

"I  thought  Priam  Farll  was  your  gentleman's  name." 

"To  tell  you  the  truth,"  he  said  nervously,  "there 
was  a  mistake.  That  photograph  that  was  sent  to  you 
was  my  photograph." 

"Yes,"  she  said.    "I  know  it  was.    And  what  of  it?" 

"I  mean,"  he  blundered  on,  "it  was  my  valet  that 
died — not  me.  You  see,  the  doctor,  when  he  came, 
thought  that  Leek  was  me,  and  I  didn't  tell  him  dif- 
ferently, because  I  was  afraid  of  all  the  bother.  I  just 
let  it  shde — and  there  were  other  reasons.  You  know 
how  I  am  .  .  ." 

"I  don't  know  what  you're  talking  about,"  she 
said. 

"Can't  you  understand?  It's  simple  enough.  I'm 
Priam  Farll,  and  I  had  a  valet  named  Henry  Leek,  and 


150  BURIED  ALIVE. 

he  died,  and  they  thought  it  was  me.  Only  it 
wasn't." 

He  saw  her  face  change  and  then  compose  itself. 

"Then  it's  this  Henry  Leek  that  is  buried  in  West- 
minster Abbey,  instead  of  you?"  Her  voice  was  very 
soft  and  soothing.  And  the  astonishing  woman  resumed 
her  spectacles  and  her  long  needle. 

"Yes,  of  course." 

Here  he  burst  into  the  whole  story,  into  the  middle 
of  it,  continuing  to  the  end,  and  then  going  back  to  the 
commencement.  He  left  out  nothing,  and  nobody,  ex- 
cept Lady  Sophia  Entwistle. 

"I  see,"  she  observed.  "And  you've  never  said  a 
word?" 

"Not  a  word." 

"If  I  were  you  I  should  still  keep  perfectly  silent 
about  it,"  she  almost  whispered  persuasively.  "It'll  be 
just  as  well.  If  I  were  you,  I  shouldn't  worry  myself. 
I  can  quite  understand  how  it  happened,  and  I'm  glad 
you've  told  me.  But  don't  worry.  You've  been  exciting 
yourself  these  last  two  or  three  days.  I  thought  it  was 
about  my  money  business,  but  I  see  it  wasn't.  At  least 
that  may  have  brought  it  on,  like.  Now  the  best  thing 
you  can  do  is  to  forget  it." 

She  did  not  believe  him!  She  simply  discredited 
the  whole  story;  and,  told  in  Werter  Road,  like  that, 
the  story  did  sound  fantastic;  it  did  come  very  near  to 


THE   CONFESSION.  I5I 

passing  belief.  She  had  ahvays  noticed  a  certain  queer- 
ness  in  her  husband.  His  sudden  gaieties  about  a  tint 
in  the  sky  or  the  gesture  of  a  horse  in  the  street,  for 
example,  were  most  uncanny.  And  he  had  peculiar 
absences  of  mind  that  she  could  never  account  for. 
She  was  sure  that  he  must  have  been  a  very  bad  valet. 
However,  she  did  not  marry  him  for  a  valet,  but  for  a 
husband;  and  she  was  satisfied  with  her  bargain.  What 
if  he  did  suffer  under  a  delusion?  The  exposure  of 
that  delusion  merely  crystallised  into  a  definite  shape 
her  vague  suspicions  concerning  his  mentality.  Besides, 
it  was  a  harmless  delusion.  And  it  explained  things. 
It  explained,  among  other  things,  why  he  had  gone  to 
stay  at  the  Grand  Babylon  Hotel.  That  must  have 
been  the  inception  of  the  delusion.  She  was  glad  to 
know  the  worst. 

She  adored  him  more  than  ever. 

There  was  a  silence. 

"No,"  she  repeated,  in  the  most  matter-ol-fact  tone, 
"I  should  say  nothing,  in  your  place.    I  should  forget  it." 

"You  would?"    He  drummed  on  the  table. 

"I  should!  And  whatever  you  do,  don't  worry." 
Her  accents  were  the  coaxing  accents  of  a  nurse  with  a 
child — or  with  a  lunatic. 

He  perceived  now  with  the  utmost  clearness  that 
she  did  not  believe  a  word  of  what  he  had  said,  and 
that  in  her  magnificent  and  calm  sagacity  she  was  only 


152  BURIED   ALIVE. 

trying  to  humour  him.  He  had  expected  to  disturb  her 
soul  to  its  profoundest  depths;  he  had  expected  that 
they  would  sit  up  half  the  night  discussing  the  situation. 
And  lo! — "I  should  forget  it,"  indulgently!  And  a  mild 
continuance  of  darning! 

He  had  to  tliink,  and  think  hard. 


TEARS. 

"Henry,"  she  called  out  the  next  morning,  as  he 
disappeared  up  the  stairs.  "What  are  you  doing  up 
there?" 

She  had  behaved  exactly  as  if  nothing  had  happened; 
and  she  was  one  of  those  women  whose  prudent  policy 
it  is  to  let  their  men  alone  even  to  the  furthest  limit  of 
patience;  but  she  had  nerves,  too,  and  they  were  being 
affected.  For  three  days  Henry  had  really  been  too 
mysterious ! 

He  stopped,  and  put  his  head  over  the  banisters, 
and  in  a  queer,  moved  voice  answered: 

"Come  and  see." 

Sooner  or  later  she  must  see.  Sooner  or  later  the 
already  distended  situation  must  get  more  and  more 
distended  until  it  burst  with  a  loud  report.  Let  the 
moment  be  sooner,  he  swiftly  decided. 

So  she  went  and  saw. 

Half-way  up  the  attic  stairs  she  began  to  sniff,  and 


TEARS.  153 

as  he  trrned  the  knob  of  the  attic  door  for  her  she 
said,  "What  a  smell  of  paint!   I  fancied  yesterday " 

If  she  had  been  clever  enough  she  would  have  said, 
"What  a  smell  of  masterpieces!"  But  her  cleverness 
lay  in  other  fields. 

"You  surely  haven't  been  aspinalling  that  bath-room 
chair?  ...     Oh!" 

This  loud  exclamation  escaped  from  her  as  she 
entered  the  attic  and  saw  the  back  of  the  picture  which 
Priam  had  lodged  on  the  said  bath-room  chair — filched 
by  him  from  the  bath-room  on  the  previous  day.  She 
stepped  to  the  vicinity  of  the  window  and  obtained  a 
good  view  of  the  picture.  It  was  brilliantly  shining  in 
the  light  of  morn.  It  looked  glorious;  it  was  a  fit  com- 
panion of  many  pictures  from  the  same  hand  distributed 
among  European  galleries.  It  had  that  priceless  quality, 
at  once  noble  and  radiant,  which  distinguished  all 
Priam's  work.  It  transformed  the  attic;  and  thousands 
of  amateurs  and  students,  from  St.  Petersburg  to  San 
Francisco,  would  have  gone  into  that  attic  with  their 
hats  off  and  a  thrill  in  the  spine,  had  they  known  what 
was  there  and  had  they  been  invited  to  enter  and 
worship,  Priam  himself  was  pleased;  he  was  delighted; 
he  was  enthusiastic.  And  he  stood  near  the  picture, 
glancing  at  it  and  then  glancing  at  Alice,  nervously,  like 
a  mother  whose  sister-in-law  has  come  to  look  at  the 
baby.     As   for  yVlice,    she  said  nothing.     She  had  first 


154  BURIF.D  ALIVE. 

of  all  to  take  in  the  fact  that  her  husband  had  been 
ungenerous  enough  to  keep  her  quite  in  the  dark  as  to 
the  nature  of  his  secret  activities;  then  she  had  to  take 
in  the  fact  of  the  picture. 

"Did  you  do  that?"  she  said  limply. 

"Yes,"  said  he,  with  all  the  casualness  that  he  could 
assume.  "How  does  it  strike  you?"  And  to  himself: 
"This'll  make  her  see  I'm  not  a  mere  lunatic.  This'U 
give  her  a  shaking  up." 

"I'm  sure  it's  beautiful,"  she  said  kindly,  but  without 
the  slightest  conviction.  "What  is  it?  Is  that  Putney 
Bridge?" 

"Yes,"  he  said. 

"I  thought  it  was.  I  thought  it  must  be.  Well,  I 
never  knew  you  could  paint.  It's  beautiful — for  an 
amateur."  She  said  this  firmly  and  yet  endearingly, 
and  met  his  eyes  with  her  eyes.  It  was  her  tactful 
method  of  politely  causing  him  to  see  that  she  had  not 
accepted  last  night's  yarn  very  seriously.  His  eyes  fell, 
not  hers. 

"No,  no,  no!"  he  expostulated  with  quick  vivacity, 
as  she  stepped  towards  the  canvas.  "Don't  come  any 
nearer.     You're  at  just  the  right  distance." 

"Oh!  If  you  don't  ivant  me  to  see  it  close,"  she 
humoured  him.  "What  a  pity  you  haven't  put  an 
omnibus  on  the  bridge!" 

"There  is  one,"  said  he.     "Thai's  one."    He  pointed. 


TEARS.  ■    155 

"Oh  yes!  Yes,  I  see.  But,  you  know,  I  think  it 
looks  rather  more  like  a  Carter  Paterson  van  than  an 
omnibus.  If  you  could  paint  some  letters  on  it — 'Union 
Jack'  or  'Vanguard,'  then  people  would  be  sure.  But 
it's    beautiful.      I    suppose    you    learnt    to    paint    from 

your "     She    checked   herself.      "What's   that   red 

streak  behind?" 

"That's  the  railway  bridge,"  he  muttered. 

"Oh,  of  course  it  is!  How  silly  of  me!  Now  if 
you  were  to  put  a  train  on  that.  The  worst  of  trains 
in  pictures  is  that  they  never  seem  to  be  going  along. 
I've  noticed  that  on  the  sides  of  furniture  vans,  haven't 
you?  But  if  you  put  a  signal  against  it,  then  people 
would  understand  that  the  train  had  stopped.  I'm  not 
sure  whether  there  is  a  signal  on  the  bridge  though." 

He  made  no  remark. 

"And  I  see  that's  the  Elk  public-house  there  on  the 
right.  You've  just  managed  to  get  it  in.  I  can  recognise 
that  quite  easily.     Anyone  would." 

He  still  made  no  remark. 

"What  are  you  going  to  do  with  it?"  she  asked 
gently. 

"Going  to  sell  it,  my  dear,"  he  replied  grimly.  "It 
may  surprise  you  to  know  that  that  canvas  is  worth  at 
the  very  least  £800.  There  would  be  a  devil  of  a  row 
and  rumpus  in  Bond  Street  and  elsewhere  if  they  knew 
I  was   painting  here  instead  of  rotting  in  Westminster 


156  BURIED   ALUrE. 

Abbey.  I  don't  propose  to  sign  it — I  seldom  did  sign 
my  pictures — and  we  shall  see  what  we  shall  see.  .  .  . 
I've  got  fifteen  hundred  for  little  things  not  so  good  as 
that.  I'll  let  it  go  for  what  it'll  fetch.  We  shall  soon 
be  wanting  money." 

The  tears  rose  to  Alice's  eyes.  She  saw  that  he 
was  infinitely  more  mad  than  she  imagined — with  his 
£800  and  his  £1,500  for  daubs  of  pictures  that  con- 
veyed no  meaning  whatever  to  the  eye!  Why,  you 
could  purchase  real,  professional  pictures,  of  lakes  and 
mountains,  exquisitely  finished,  at  the  frame-makers  in 
High  Street  for  three  pounds  apiece!  And  here  he 
was  rambling  in  hundreds  and  thousands!  She  saw 
that  that  extraordinary  notion  about  being  able  to  paint 
was  a  natural  consequence  of  the  pathetic  delusion  to 
which  he  had  given  utterance  yesterday.  And  she 
wondered  what  would  follow  next.  Who  could  have 
guessed  that  the  seeds  of  lunacy  were  in  such  a  man? 
Yes,  harmless  lunacy,  but  lunacy  nevertheless!  She 
distinctly  remembered  the  little  shock  with  which  she 
had  learned  that  he  was  staying  at  the  Grand  Babylon 
on  his  own  account,  as  a  wealthy  visitor.  She  thought  it 
bizarre,  but  she  certainly  had  not  taken  it  for  a  sign  of 
lunacy.  And  yet  it  had  been  a  sign  of  madness.  And 
the  worst  of  harmless  lunacy  was  that  it  might  develop 
at  any  moment  into  harmful  lunacy. 

There   was   one   thing   to   do,   and  only  one:   keep 


TEARS.  157 

him  quiet,  shield  him  from  all  troubles  and  alarms.  It 
was  disturbance  of  spirit  which  induced  these  mental 
derangements.  His  master's  death  had  upset  him.  And 
now  he  had  been  upset  by  her  disgraceful  brewery 
company. 

She  made  a  step  towards  him,  and  then  hesitated. 
She  had  to  form  a  plan  of  campaign  all  in  a  moment! 
She  had  to  keep  her  wits  and  to  use  them!  How 
could  she  give  him  confidence  about  his  absurd  picture? 
She  noticed  that  naive  look  that  sometimes  came  into 
his  eyes,  a  boyish  expression  that  gave  the  lie  to  his 
greying  beard  and  his  generous  proportions. 

He  laughed,  until,  as  she  came  closer,  he  saw  the 
tears  on  her  eyelids.  Then  he  ceased  laughing.  She 
fingered  the  edge  of  his  coat,  cajolingly. 

"It's  a  beautiful  picture!"  she  repeated  again  and 
again.  "And  if  you  like  I  will  see  if  I  can  sell  it  for 
you.      But,  Henry " 

"Well?" 

"Please,  please  don't  bother  about  money.  We 
shall  have  heaps.  There's  no  occasion  for  you  to  bother, 
and  I  won't  have  you  bothering." 

"What  are  you  crying  for?"  he  asked  in  a  murmur. 

"It's  only — only  because  I  think  it's  so  nice  of  you 
trying  to  earn  money  like  that,"  she  lied.  "I'm  not 
really  crying." 

And   she   ran   away,    downstairs,    really   crying.      It 


158  BURIED  AUVE. 

was  excessively  comic,  but  he  had  better  not  follow  her, 
lest  he  might  cry  too.  .  .  . 


A  PATRON   OF   THE   ARTS. 

A  lull  followed  this  crisis  in  the  affairs  of  No.  29 
Werter  Road.  Priam  went  on  painting,  and  there  was 
now  no  need  for  secrecy  about  it.  But  his  painting 
was  not  made  a  subject  of  conversation.  Both  of  them 
hesitated  to  touch  it,  she  from  tact,  and  he  because  her 
views  on  the  art  seemed  to  him  to  be  lacking  in  subtlety. 
In  every  marriage  there  is  a  topic — there  are  usually 
several — which  the  husband  will  never  broach  to  the 
wife,  out  of  respect  for  his  respect  for  her.  Priam 
scarcely  guessed  that  Alice  imagined  him  to  be  on  the 
way  to  lunacy.  He  thought  she  merely  thought  him 
queer,  as  artists  are  queer  to  non-artists.  And  he  was 
accustomed  to  that;  Henry  Leek  had  always  thought 
him  queer.  As  for  Alice's  incredulous  attitude  towards 
the  revelation  of  his  identity,  he  did  not  mentally  accuse 
her  of  treating  him  as  either  a  liar  or  a  madman. 
On  reflection  he  persuaded  himself  that  she  regarded 
the  story  as  a  bad  joke,  as  one  of  his  impulsive, 
capricious  essays  in  the  absurd. 

Thus  the  march  of  evolution  was  apparently  ar- 
rested in  Werter  Road  during  three  whole  days.  And 
then    a    singular    event    happened,    and    progress    was 


A  PATRON   OF  THE  ARTS.  I  59 

resumed.  Priam  had  been  out  since  early  morning  on 
the  riverside,  sketching,  and  had  reached  Barnes,  from 
which  town  he  returned  over  Barnes  Common,  and  so 
by  the  Upper  Richmond  Road  to  High  Street.  He  was 
on  the  south  side  of  Upper  Richmond  Road,  whereas 
his  tobacconist's  shop  was  on  the  north  side,  near  the 
corner.  An  unfamihar  pecuharity  of  the  shop  caused 
him  to  cross  the  street,  for  he  v/as  not  in  want  of 
tobacco.  It  was  the  look  of  the  window  that  drew 
him.  He  stopped  on  the  refuge  in  the  centre  of  the 
street.  There  was  no  necessity  to  go  further.  His 
picture  of  Putney  Bridge  was  in  the  middle  of  the 
window.  He  stared  at  it  fixedly.  He  believed  his 
eyes,  for  his  eyes  were  the  finest  part  of  him  and  never 
deceived  him;  but  perhaps  if  he  had  been  a  person 
with  ordinary  eyes  he  would  scarce  have  been  able  to 
believe  them.  The  canvas  was  indubitably  there  present 
in  the  window.  It  had  been  put  in  a  cheap  frame  such 
as  is  used  for  chromographic  advertisements  of  ships, 
soups,  and  tobacco.  He  was  almost  sure  that  he  had 
seen  that  same  frame,  within  the  shop,  round  a  pictorial 
announcement  of  Taddy's  Snuff.  The  tobacconist  had 
probably  removed  the  eighteenth-century  aristocrat  with 
his  fingers  to  his  nose,  from  the  frame,  and  replaced 
him  with  Putney  Bridge.  In  any  event  the  frame  was 
about  half-an-inch  too  long  for  the  canvas,  but  the  gap 
was   scarcely  observable.     On  the   frame   was   a  large 


l6o  BURIED   AT.TVE. 

notice,  'For  sale.'  And  around  it  were  the  cigars  of 
two  hemispheres,  from  Syak  Whiffs  at  a  penny  each  to 
precious  Murias;  and  cigarettes  of  every  ahurement;  and 
the  muUitudinous  fragments  of  all  advertised  tobaccos; 
and  meerschaums  and  briars,  and  patent  pipes  and 
diagrams  of  their  secret  machinery;  and  cigarette-  and 
cigar-holders  laid  on  plush;  and  pocket  receptacles  in 
aluminium  and  other  precious  metals. 

Shining  there,  the  pictui'e  had  a  most  incongruous 
appearance.  He  blushed  as  he  stood  on  the  refuge. 
It  seemed  to  him  that  the  mere  incongruity  of  the 
spectacle  must  inevitably  attract  crowds,  gradually 
blocking  the  street,  and  that  when  some  individual  not 
absolutely  a  fool  in  art,  had  perceived  the  quality  of 
the  picture — well,  then  the  trouble  of  public  curiosity 
and  of  journalistic  inquisitiveness  would  begin.  He 
wondered  that  he  could  ever  have  dreamed  of  conceal- 
ing his  identity  on  a  canvas.  The  thing  simply  shouted 
"Priam  Farll,"  every  inch  of  it.  In  any  exhibition  of 
pictures  in  London,  Paris,  Rome,  Milan,  Munich,  New 
York  or  Boston,  it  would  have  been  the  cynosure,  the 
target  of  ecstatic  admirations.  It  was  just  such  another 
work  as  his  celebrated  "Pont  d'Austerlitz,"  which  hung 
in  the  Luxembourg.  And  neither  a  frame  of  "chemical 
gold,"  nor  the  extremely  variegated  coloration  of  the 
other  merchandise  on  sale  could  kill  it. 

However,  there  were  no  signs  of  a  crowd.     People 


A  PATRON  OF  THE  ARTS,  l6l 

passed  to  and  fro,  just  as  though  there  had  not  been  a 
masterpiece  within  ten  thousand  miles  of  them.  Once 
a  servant  girl,  a  loaf  of  bread  in  her  red  arms,  stopped 
to  glance  at  the  window,  but  in  an  instant  she  was 
gone,  running. 

Priam's  first  instinctive  movement  had  been  to  plunge 
into  the  shop,  and  demand  from  his  tobacconist  an  ex- 
planation of  the  phenomenon.  But  of  course  he  checked 
himself.  Of  course  he  knew  that  the  presence  of  his 
picture  in  the  window  could  only  be  due  to  the  enter- 
prise of  Alice. 

He  went  slowly  home. 

The  sound  of  his  latchkey  in  the  keyhole  brought 
her  into  the  hall  ere  he  had  opened  the  door. 

"Oh,  Henry,"  she  said — she  was  quite  excited — "I 
must  tell  you.  I  was  passing  Mr.  Aylmer's  this  morning 
just  as  he  was  dressing  his  window,  and  the  thought 
struck  me  that  he  might  put  your  picture  in.  So  I  ran 
in  and  asked  him.  He  said  he  would  if  he  could  have 
it  at  once.  So  I  came  and  got  it.  He  found  a  frame, 
and  wrote  out  a  ticket,  and  asked  after  you.  No  one 
could  have  been  kinder.  You  must  go  and  have  a 
look  at  it.  I  shouldn't  be  at  all  surprised  if  it  gets 
sold  like  that." 

Priam  answered  nothing  for  a  moment.  He  could  not. 

"What  did  Aylmer  say  about  it?"  he  asked. 

"Oh!"  said  his  wife  quickly,  "you  can't  expect  Mr. 

Buried  Alive,  \  1 


l62  BURIED   ALIVE. 

Aylmer  to  understand  these  things.  It's  not  m  his  line.  But 
he  was  glad  to  oblige  us.   I  saw  that  he  arranged  it  nicely." 

"Well,"  said  Priam  discreetly,  "that's  all  right. 
Suppose  we  have  lunch?" 

Curious — her  relations  with  Mr.  Aylmer!  It  was  she 
who  had  recommended  him  to  go  to  Mr.  Aylmer's  when, 
on  the  first  morning  of  his  residence  in  Putney,  he  had 
demanded,  "Any  decent  tobacconists  in  this  happy 
region?"  He  suspected  that,  had  it  not  been  for 
Aylmer's  bedridden  and  incurable  wife,  Alice's  name 
might  have  been  Aylmer.  He  suspected  Aylmer  of  a 
hopeless  passion  for  Alice.  He  was  glad  that  Alice  had 
not  been  thrown  away  on  Aylmer.  He  could  not 
imagine  himself  now  without  Alice.  In  spite  of  her 
ideas  on  the  graphic  arts,  Alice  was  his  air,  his  atmo- 
sphere, his  oxygen;  and  also  his  umbrella  to  shield  him 
from  the  hail  of  untoward  circumstances.  Curious — the 
process  of  love!  It  was  the  power  of  love  that  had  put 
that  picture  in  the  tobacconist's  window. 

Whatever  power  had  put  it  there,  no  power  seemed 
strong  enough  to  get  it  out  again.  It  lay  exposed  in 
the  window  for  weeks  and  never  drew  a  crowd,  nor 
caused  a  sensation  of  any  kind!  Not  a  word  in  the 
newspapers!  London,  the  acknowledged  art-centre  of 
the  world,  calmly  went  its  ways.  The  sole  immediate 
result  was  that  Priam  changed  his  tobacconist,  and  the 
direction  of  his  proqienades. 


A  PATRON   OF  THE  ARTS.  1 63 

At  last  another  singular  event  happened. 

Alice  beamingly  put  five  sovereigns  into  Priam's  hand 
one  evening. 

"It's  been  sold  for  five  guineas,"  she  said,  joyous. 
"Mr.  Aylmer  didn't  want  to  keep  anything  for  himself, 
but  I  insisted  on  his  having  the  odd  shillings.  I  think 
it's  splendid,  simply  splendid!  Of  course  I  always  did 
think  it  was  a  beautiful  picture,"  she  added. 

The  fact  was  that  this  astounding  sale  for  so  large 
a  sum  as  five  pounds,  of  a  picture  done  in  the  attic  by 
her  Henry,  had  enlarged  her  ideas  of  Henry's  skill. 
She  could  no  longer  regard  his  painting  as  the  caprice 
of  a  gentle  lunatic.  There  was  something  in  it.  And 
now  she  wanted  to  persuade  herself  that  she  had  known 
from  the  first  there  was  something  in  it. 

The  picture  had  been  bought  by  the  eccentric  and 
notorious  landlord  of  the  Elk  Hotel,  down  by  the  river, 
on  a  Sunday  afternoon  when  he  was — not  drunk,  but 
more  optimistic  than  the  state  of  English  society  war- 
rants. He  liked  the  picture  because  his  public-house 
was  so  unmistakably  plain  in  it.  He  ordered  a  massive 
gold  frame  for  it,  and  hung  it  in  his  saloon-bar.  His 
career  as  a  patron  of  the  arts  was  unfortunately  cut 
short  by  an  order  signed  by  his  doctors  for  his  incar- 
ceration in  a  lunatic  asylum.  All  Putney  had  been 
saying  for  years  that  he  would  end  in  the  asylum,  and 
all  Putney  was  right. 


164  BURIED  ALIVE. 


CHAPTER   VIIL 
AN  INVASION. 

One  afternoon,  in  December,  Priam  and  Alice  were 
in  the  sitting-room  together,  and  AUce  was  about  to 
prepare  tea.  The  drawn-thread  cloth  was  laid  diagonally 
on  the  table  (because  Alice  had  seen  cloths  so  laid  on 
model  tea-tables  in  model  rooms  at  Waring's),  the  straw- 
berry jam  occupied  the  northern  point  of  the  compass, 
and  the  marmalade  was  antarctic,  while  brittle  cakes 
and  spongy  cakes  represented  the  Occident  and  the 
orient  respectively.  Bread-and-butter  stood,  rightly,  for 
the  centre  of  the  universe.  Silver  ornamented  the 
spread,  and  Alice's  two  tea-pots  (for  she  would  never 
allow  even  Chinese  tea  to  remain  on  the  leaves  for  more 
than  five  minutes)  and  Alice's  water-jug  with  the  patent 
balanced  lid,  occupied  a  tray  off  the  cloth.  At  some 
distance,  but  still  on  the  table,  a  kettle  moaned  over  a 
spirit-lamp.  Alice  was  cutting  bread  for  toast.  The 
fire  was  of  the  right  redness  for  toast,  and  a  toasting- 
fork  lay  handy.  As  winter  advanced,  Alice's  teas  had 
a  tendency  to  become  cosier  and  cosier,  and  also  more 
luxurious,  more  of  a  ritualistic  ceremony.    And  to  avoid 


AN  INVASION.  165 

the  trouble  and  danger  of  going  through  a  cold  passage 
to  the  kitchen,  she  arranged  matters  so  that  the  entire 
operation  could  be  performed  with  comfort  and  decency 
in  the  sitting-room  itself. 

Priam  was  rolling  cigarettes,  many  of  them,  and 
placing  them,  as  he  rolled  them,  in  order  on  the  mantel- 
piece. A  happy,  mild  couple!  And  a  couple,  one  would 
judge  from  the  richness  of  the  tea,  with  no  immediate 
need  of  money.  Over  two  years,  however,  had  passed 
since  the  catastrophe  to  Cohoon's,  and  Cohoon's  had  in 
no  way  recovered  therefrom.  Yet  money  had  been 
regularly  found  for  the  household.  The  manner  of  its 
finding  was  soon  to  assume  importance  in  the  careers 
of  Priam  and  Alice.  But,  ere  that  moment,  an  astonish- 
ing and  vivid  experience  happened  to  them.  One  might 
have  supposed  that,  in  the  life  of  Priam  Farll  at  least, 
enough  of  the  astonishing  and  the  vivid  had  already 
happened.  Nevertheless,  what  had  already  happened 
was  as  customary  and  unexciting  as  addressing  enve- 
lopes, compared  to  the  next  event. 

The  next  event  began  at  the  instant  when  Alice 
was  sticking  the  long  fork  into  a  round  of  bread. 
There  was  a  knock  at  the  front  door,  a  knock  formi- 
dable and  reverberating,  the  knock  of  ftite,  perhaps,  but 
fate  disguised  as  a  coalheaver. 

Alice  answered  it.  She  always  answered  knocks; 
Priam   never.     She   shielded   him  from  every  rough  or 


l66  BURIED  ALIVE. 

unexpected  contact,  just  as  his  valet  used  to  do.  The 
gas  in  the  hall  was  not  Hghted,  and  so  she  stopped  to 
hght  it,  darkness  having  fallen.  Then  she  opened  the 
door,  and  saw,  in  the  gloom,  a  short,  thin  woman 
standing  on  the  step,  a  woman  of  advanced  middle-age, 
dressed  with  a  kind  of  shabby  neatness.  It  seemed 
impossible  that  so  frail  and  unimportant  a  creature 
could  have  made  such  a  noise  on  the  door. 

"Is  this  Mr.  Henry  Leek's?"  asked  the  visitor,  in  a 
dissatisfied,  rather  weary  tone. 

"Yes,"  said  Alice.  Which  was  not  quite  true. 
"This"  was  assuredly  hers,  rather  than  her  husband's. 

"Oh!"  said  the  woman,  glancing  behind  her;  and 
entered  nervously,  without  invitation. 

At  the  same  moment  three  male  figures  sprang,  or 
rushed,  out  of  the  strip  of  front  garden,  and  followed 
the  woman  into  the  hall,  lunging  up  against  Alice,  and 
breathing  loudly.  One  of  the  trio  was  a  strong,  heavy- 
faced,  heavy-handed,  louring  man  of  some  thirty  years 
(it  seemed  probable  that  he  was  the  knocker),  and  the 
others  were  curates,  with  the  proper  physical  attributes 
of  curates;  that  is  to  say,  they  were  of  ascetic  habit  and 
clean-shaven  and  had  ingenuous  eyes. 

The  hall  now  appeared  like  the  antechamber  of  a 
May-meeting,  and  as  Alice  had  never  seen  it  so  peopled 
before,  she  vented  a  natural  exclamation  of  surprise. 

"Yes,"  said  one  of  the  curates,  fiercely.     "You  may 


AN  INVASION.  Iby 

say  'Lord,'  but  we  were  determined  to  get  in,  and  in 
we  have  got.  John,  shut  the  door.  Mother,  don't  put 
yourself  about." 

John,  being  the  heavy-faced  and  heavy-handed  man, 
shut  the  door. 

"Where  is  Mr.  Henry  Leek?"  demanded  the  other 
curate. 

Now  Priam,  whose  curiosity  had  been  excusably 
excited  by  the  unusual  sounds  in  the  hall,  was  peeping 
through  a  chink  of  the  sitting-room  door,  and  the 
elderly  woman  caught  the  glint  of  his  eyes.  She  pushed 
open  the  door,  and,  after  a  few  seconds'  inspection  of 
him,  said: 

"There  you  are,  Henry!  After  thirty  years!  To 
think  of  it!" 

Priam  was  utterly  at  a  loss. 

"Pm  his  wife,  ma'am,"  the  visitor  continued  sadly 
to  Alice.  "Pm  sorry  to  have  to  tell  you.  Pm  his  wife. 
Pm  the  rightful  Mrs.  Henry  Leek,  and  these  are  my 
sons,  come  with  me  to  see  that  I  get  justice." 

Alice  recovered  very  quickly  from  the  shock  of 
amazement.  She  was  a  woman,  not  easily  to  be  startled 
by  the  vagaries  of  human  nature.  She  had  often  heard 
of  bigamy,  and  that  her  husband  should  prove  to  be  a 
bigamist  did  not  throw  her  into  a  swoon.  She  at  once, 
in  her  own  mind,  began  to  make  excuses  for  him.  She 
said   to  herself,   as  she   inspected  the  real  Mrs.  Henry 


I  68  BURIED  ALIVE. 

Leek,  that  the  real  Mrs.  Henry  Leek  had  certainly  the 
temperament  which  manufactures  bigamists.  She  under- 
stood how  a  person  may  slide  into  bigamy.  And  after 
thirty  years!  .  .  .  She  never  thought  of  bigamy  as  a 
crime,  nor  did  it  occur  to  her  to  run  out  and  drown 
herself  for  shame  because  she  was  not  properly  married 
to  Priam! 

No,  it  has  to  be  said  in  favour  of  Alice  that  she  in- 
variably took  things  as  they  were. 

"I  think  you'd  better  all  come  in  and  sit  down 
quietly,"  she  said. 

"Eh!  It's  very  kind  of  you,"  said  the  mother  of 
the  curates,  limply. 

The  last  thing  that  the  curates  wanted  to  do  was  to 
sit  down  quietly.  But  they  had  to  sit  down.  Alice 
made  them  sit  side  by  side  on  the  sofa.  The  heavy, 
elder  brother,  who  had  not  spoken  a  word,  sat  on  a 
chair  between  the  sideboard  and  the  door.  Their  mother 
sat  on  a  chair  near  the  table.  Priam  fell  into  his  easy- 
chair  between  the  fireplace  and  the  sideboard.  As  for 
Alice,  she  remained  standing;  she  showed  no  nervous- 
ness except  in  her  handling  of  the  toasting-fork. 

It  was  a  great  situation.  But  unfortunately  ordinary 
people  are  so  unaccustomed  to  the  great  situation,  that, 
when  it  chances  to  come,  they  feel  themselves  incapable 
of  living  up  to  it.  A  person  gazing  in  at  the  window, 
and   unacquainted   with   the  facts,  might  have  guessed 


AN  im^AsiON.  i6g 

that  the  affair  was  simply  a  tea-party  at  which  the  guests 
had  arrived  a  Httle  too  soon  and  where  no  one  was 
starthngly  proficient  in  the  art  of  small-talk. 

Still,  the  curates  were  apparently  bent  on  doing 
their  best. 

"Now,  mother!"  one  of  them  urged  her. 

The  mother,  as  if  a  spring  had  been  touched  in 
her,  began:  "He  married  me  just  thirty  years  ago, 
ma'am;  and  four  months  after  my  eldest  was  born — 
that's  John  there"  (pointing  to  the  corner  near  the 
door) — "he  just  walked  out  of  the  house  and  left  me. 
I'm  sorry  to  have  to  say  it.  Yes,  sorry  I  am!  But 
there  it  is.  And  never  a  word  had  I  ever  given  him! 
And  eight  months  after  that  my  twins  were  born. 
That's  Harry  and  Matthew" — (pointing  to  the  sofa) — • 
"Harry  I  called  after  his  fother  because  I  thought  he 
was  like  him,  and  just  to  show  I  bore  no  ill-feeling, 
and  hoping  he'd  come  back!  And  there  I  was  with 
these  little  children!  And  not  a  word  of  explanation 
did  I  ever  have.  I  heard  of  Harry  five  years  later — 
when  Johnnie  was  nearly  five — but  he  was  on  the 
Continent  and  I  couldn't  go  trapesing  about  with  three 
babies.  Besides,  if  I  had  gone!  .  .  .  Sorry  I  am  to  say 
it,  ma'am;  but  many's  the  time  he's  beaten  me,  yes, 
with  his  hands  and  his  fists!  He's  knocked  me  about 
above  a  bit.  And  I  never  gave  him  a  word  back.  He 
was   my  husband,  for  better  for  worse,  and  I  forgave 


170  BURIED   ALIVE. 

liim  and  I  still  do.  Forgive  and  forget,  that's  what  I 
say.  We  only  heard  of  him  through  Matthew  being 
second  curate  at  St.  Paul's,  and  in  charge  of  the  mis- 
sion hall.  It  was  your  milkman  that  happened  to  tell 
Matthew  that  he  had  a  customer  same  name  as  him- 
self. And  you  know  how  one  thing  leads  to  another. 
So  we're  here!" 

"I  never  saw  this  lady  in  my  life,"  said  Priam  ex- 
citedly, "and  Pm  absolutely  certain  I  never  married 
her.  I  never  married  anyone;  except,  of  course,  you, 
Alice!" 

"Then  how  do  you  explain  this,  sir?"  exclaimed 
Matthew,  the  younger  twin,  jumping  up  and  taking  a 
blue  paper  from  his  pocket.  "Be  so  good  as  to  pass 
this  to  father,"  he  said,  handing  the  paper  to  Alice. 

Alice  inspected  the  document.  It  was  a  certificate 
of  the  marriage  of  Henry  Leek,  valet,  and  Sarah 
Featherstone,  spinster,  at  a  registry  office  in  Padding- 
ton.  Priam  also  inspected  it.  This  was  one  of  Leek's 
escapades!  No  revelations  as  to  the  past  of  Henry 
Leek  would  have  surprised  him.  There  was  nothing  to 
be  done  except  to  give  a  truthful  denial  of  identity  and 
to  persist  in  that  denial.  Useless  to  say  soothingly  to 
the  lady  visitor  that  she  was  the  widow  of  a  gentleman 
who  had  been  laid  to  rest  in  Westminster  Abbey! 

"I  know  nothing  about  it,"  said  Priam  doggedly. 

"I  suppose  you'll  not  deny,  sir,  that  your  name  is 


AN  INVASION.  171 

Henry  Leek,"    said   Henry,    jumping   up    to   stand   by 
Matthew. 

"I  deny  everything,"  said  Priam  doggedly.  How 
could  he  explain?  If  he  had  not  been  able  to  convince 
Alice  that  he  was  not  Henry  Leek,  could  he  hope  to 
convince  these  visitors? 

"I  suppose,  madam,"  Henry  continued,  addressing 
Alice  in  impressive  tones  as  if  she  were  a  crowded 
congregation,  "that  at  any  rate  you  and  my  father  are 
— er — living  here  together  under  the  name  of  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Henry  Leek?" 

Alice  merely  lifted  her  eyebrows. 

"It's  all  a  mistake,"  said  Priam  impatiently.  Then 
he  had  a  brilliant  inspiration.  "As  if  there  was  only 
one  Henry  Leek  in  the  world!" 

"Do  you  really  recognise  my  husband?"  Alice 
asked. 

"Your  husband,  madam!"  Matthew  protested, 
shocked. 

"I  wouldn't  say  that  I  recognised  him  as  he  tvas," 
said  the  real  Mrs.  Henry  Leek.  "No  more  than  he  re- 
cognises me.  After  thirty  years!  .  .  .  Last  time  I  saw 
him  he  was  only  twenty-two  or  twenty-three.  But  he's 
the  same  sort  of  man,  and  he  has  the  same  eyes.  And 
look  at  Henry's  eyes.  Besides,  I  heard  twenty-five 
years  ago  that  he'd  gone  into  service  with  a  Mr.  Priam 
Farll,  a  painter  or  something,  him  that  was  buried  in 


172  BURIED   ALnTE. 

Westminster  Abbey.     And  everybody  in  Putney  knows 

that  this  gentleman " 

"Gentleman!"  murmured  Matthew,  discontented. 
"Was  valet  to  Mr.  Priam  Farll.     We've  heard  that 
everywhere." 

"I  suppose  you'll  not  deny,"  said  Henry  the  younger, 
"that  Priam  Farll  wouldn't  be  likely  to  have  hvo  valets 
named  Henry  Leek?" 

Crushed  by  this  Socratic  reasoning,  Priam  kept 
silence,  nursing  his  knees  and  staring  into  the  fire. 

Alice  went   to   the   sideboard   where   she   kept   her 

best  china,   and  took  out  three  extra  cups  and  saucers. 

"I  think  we'd  all  better  have  some  tea,"   she  said 

tranquilly.     And  then   she   got  the  tea-caddy   and  put 

seven  teaspoonfuls  of  tea  into  one  of  the  tea-pots. 

"It's  very  kind  of  you,  Pm  sure,"  whimpered  the 
authentic  Mrs.  Henry  Leek. 

"Now,  mother,  don't  give  way!"  the  curates  ad- 
monished her. 

"Don't  you  remember,  Henry,"  she  went  on  whim- 
pering to  Priam,  "how  you  said  you  wouldn't  be  mar- 
ried in  a  church,  not  for  anybody?  And  how  I  gave 
way  to  you,  like  I  always  did?  And  don't  you  remem- 
ber how  you  wouldn't  let  poor  little  Johnnie  be  baptised? 
Well,  I  do  hope  your  opinions  have  altered.  Eh,  but 
it's  strange,  it's  strange,  how  two  of  your  sons,  and  just 
them  two  that  you'd  never  set  eyes  on  until  this  day, 


AN  INVASION.  173 

should  have  made  up  their  minds  to  go  into  the  church! 
And  thanks  to  Johnnie  there,  they've  been  able  to.  If 
I  was  to  tell  you  all  the  struggles  we've  had,  you 
wouldn't  believe  me.  They  were  clerks,  and  they  might 
have  been  clerks  to  this  day,  if  it  hadn't  been  for 
Johnnie.  But  Johnnie  could  always  earn  money.  It's 
that  engineering!  And  now  Matthew's  second  curate  at 
St.  Paul's  and  getting  fifty  pounds  a  year,  and  Henry'll 
have  a  curacy  next  month  at  Bermondsey — it's  been 
promised,  and  all  thanks  to  Johnnie!"     She  wept. 

Johnnie,  in  the  corner,  who  had  so  far  done  nought 
but  knock  at  the  door,  maintained  stiffly  his  policy  of 
non-interference. 

Priam  Farll,  angry,  resentful,  and  quite  untouched 
by  the  recital,  shrugged  his  shoulders.  He  was  animated 
by  the  sole  desire  to  fly  from  the  widow  and  progeny 
of  his  late  valet.  But  he  could  not  fly.  The  Herculean 
John  was  too  close  to  the  door.  So  he  shrugged  his 
shoulders  a  second  time. 

"Yes,  sir,"  said  Matthew,  "you  may  shrug  your 
shoulders,  but  you  can't  shrug  us  out  of  existence. 
Here  we  are,  and  you  can't  get  over  us.  You  are  our 
father,  and  I  presume  that  a  kind  of  respect  is  due  to 
you.  Yet  how  can  you  hope  for  our  respect?  Have 
you  earned  it?  Did  you  earn  it  when  you  ill-treated 
our  poor  mother?  Did  you  earn  it  when  you  left  her, 
with   the  most  inhuman  cruelty,  to  fend  for  herself  in 


T74  BURIED  ALIVE. 

the  world?  Did  you  earn  it  when  you  abandoned  your 
children  born  and  unborn?  You  are  a  bigamist,  sir;  a 
deceiver  of  women!     Heaven  knows " 

"Would  you  mind  just  toasting  this  bread?"  Alice 
interrupted  his  impassioned  discourse  by  putting  the 
loaded  toasting-fork  into  his  hands,  "while  I  make  the 
tea?" 

It  was  a  novel  way  of  stopping  a  mustang  in  full 
career,  but  it  succeeded. 

While  somewhat  perfunctorily  holding  the  fork  to 
the  fire,  Matthew  glared  about  him,  to  signify  his 
righteous  horror,  and  other  sentiments. 

"Please  don't  burn  it,"  said  Alice  gently.  "Suppose 
you  were  to  sit  down  on  this  footstool."  And  then  she 
poured  boiling  water  on  the  tea,  put  the  lid  on  the  pot, 
and  looked  at  the  clock  to  note  the  exact  second  at 
which  the  process  of  infusion  had  begun. 

"Of  course,"  burst  out  Henry,  the  twin  of  Matthew, 
"I  need  not  say,  madam,  that  you  have  all  our  sym- 
pathies.    You  are  in  a " 

"Do  you  mean  me?"  Alice  asked. 

In  an  undertone  Priam  could  be  heard  obstinately 
repeating,  "Never  set  eyes  upon  her  before!  Never  set 
eyes  on  the  woman  before!" 

"I  do,  madam,"  said  Henry,  not  to  be  cowed  nor 
deflected  from  his  course.  "I  speak  for  all  of  us. 
You   have   our   sympathies.     You  could   not  know   the 


AN  im^ASION.  175 

character  of  the  man  you  married,  or  rather  with  whom 
you  went  through  the  ceremony  of  marriage.  However, 
we  have  heard,  by  inquiry,  that  you  made  his  acquaint- 
ance through  the  medium  of  a  matrimonial  agency; 
and  indirectly,  when  one  does  that  sort  of  thing,  one 
takes  one's  chance.  Your  position  is  an  extremely  de- 
licate one;  but  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  you 
brought  it  on  yourself.  In  my  work,  I  have  encountered 
many  sad  instances  of  the  result  of  lax  moral  prin- 
ciples; but  I  little  thought  to  encounter  the  saddest  of 
all  in  my  own  family.  The  discovery  is  just  as  great  a 
blow  to  us  as  it  is  to  you.  We  have  suffered;  my 
mother  has  suffered.  And  now,  I  fear,  it  is  your  turn 
to  suffer.  You  are  not  this  man's  wife.  Nothing  can 
make  you  his  wife.  Yet  you  are  living  in  the  same 
house  with  him — under  circumstances — er — without  a 
chaperon.  I  hesitate  to  characterise  your  situation  in 
plain  words.  It  would  scarcely  become  me,  or  mine, 
to  do  so.  But  really  no  lady  could  possibly  find  her- 
self in  a  situation  more  false  than — I  am  afraid  there  is 
only  one  word,  open  immorality,  and — er — to  put  your- 
self right  with  society  there  is  one  thing,  and  only  one, 
left  for  you  to — er — do.  I — I  speak  for  the  family,  and 
I " 

"Sugar?"  Alice  questioned  the  mother  of  curates. 

"Yes,  please." 

"One  lump,  or  two?" 


176  BURIED  ALIVE. 

"Two,  please." 

"Speaking  for  the  family "  Henry  resumed. 

"Will  you  kindly  pass  this  cup  to  your  mother?" 
Alice  suggested. 

Henry  was  obliged  to  take  the  cup.  Excited  by 
the  fever  of  eloquence,  he  unfortunately  upset  it  before 
it  had  reached  his  mother's  hands. 

"Oh,  Henry!"  murmured  the  lady,  mournfully 
aghast.  "You  always  were  so  clumsy!  And  a  clean 
cloth,  too!" 

"Don't  mention  it,  please,"  said  Alice,  and  then  to 
her  Henry:  "My  dear,  just  run  into  the  kitchen,  and 
bring  me  something  to  wipe  this  up.  Hanging  behind 
the  door — you'll  see." 

Priam  sprang  forward  with  astonishing  celerity.  And 
the  occasion  brooking  no  delay,  the  guardian  of  the 
portal  could  not  but  let  him  pass.  In  another  moment 
the  front  door  banged.  Priam  did  not  return.  And 
Alice  staunched  the  flow  of  tea  with  a  clean,  stiff  ser- 
viette taken  from  the  sideboard  drawer. 


A  DEPARTURE. 

The  family  of  the  late  Henry  Leek,  each  with  a  cup 
in  hand,  experienced  a  certain  difficulty  in  maintaining 
the  interview  at  the  pitch  set  by  Matthew  and  Henry. 


A  DEPARTURE.  177 

Mrs.  Leek,  their  mother,  frankly  gave  way  to  soft  tears, 
while  eating  bread-and-butter,  jam  and  zebra-like  toast. 
John  took  everything  that  Alice  offered  to  him  in  gloomy 
and  awkward  silence. 

"Does  he  mean  to  come  back?"  Matthew  demanded 
at  length.     He  had  risen  from  the  footstool. 

"Who?"  asked  Alice. 

Matthew  paused,  and  then  said,  savagely  and  de- 
liberately: "Father." 

Alice  smiled.  "I'm  afraid  not.  I'm  afraid  he's 
gone  out.  You  see,  he's  a  rather  peculiar  man.  It's 
not  the  slightest  use  me  trying  to  drive  him.  He  can 
only  be  led.  He  has  his  good  points — I  can  speak 
candidly  as  he  isn't  here,  and  I  will — he  has  his  good 
points.  When  Mrs.  Leek,  as  I  suppose  she  calls  herself, 
spoke  about  his  cruelty  to  her — well,  I  understood  that. 
Far  be  it  from  me  to  say  a  word  against  him;  he's 
often  very  good  to  me,  but — another  cup,  Mr,  John?" 

John  advanced  to  the  table  without  a  word,  holding 
his  cup. 

"You  don't  mean  to  say,  ma'am,"  said  Mrs.  Leek, 
"that  he ?" 

Alice  nodded  grievously. 

Mrs.  Leek  burst  into  tears.  "When  Johnnie  was 
barely  five  weeks  old,"  she  said,  "he  would  twist  my 
arm.  And  he  kept  me  without  money.  And  once  he 
locked  me  up  in  the  cellar.     And  one  morning  when  I 

Buried  Alive,  12 


178  BURIED   ALIVE. 

was  ironing  he  snatched  the  hot  iron  out  of  my  hand 
and " 

"Don't!  Don't!"  Alice  soothed  her.  "I  know.  I 
know  all  you  can  tell  me.  I  know  because  I've  been 
through " 

"You  don't  mean  to  say  he  threatened  you  with  the 
flat-iron?" 

"If  threatening  was  only  all!"  said  x'Mice,  like  a 
martyr. 

"Then  he's  not  changed,  in  all  these  years!"  wept 
the  mother  of  curates. 

"If  he  has,  it's  for  the  worse,"  said  Alice.  "How 
was  I  to  tell?"  she  faced  the  curates.  "How  could  I 
know?  And  yet  nobody,  nobody,  could  be  nicer  than 
he  is  at  times!" 

"That's  true,  that's  true,"  responded  the  authentic 
Mrs.  Henry  Leek.  "He  was  always  so  changeable,  so 
queer." 

"Queer!"  Alice  took  up  the  word.  "That's  it. 
Queer!  I  don't  think  he's  quite  right  in  his  head,  not 
quite  right.  He  has  the  very  strangest  fancies.  I  never 
take  any  notice  of  them,  but  they're  there.  I  seldom 
get  up  in  the  morning  without  thinking,  'Well,  perhaps 
to-day  he'll  have  to  be  taken  off.' " 

"Taken  off?" 

"Yes,  to  Hanwell,  or  wherever  it  is.  And  you  must 
remember"  she  said  gazing  firmly  at  the  curates,  "you've 


A  DEPARTURE.  179 

got  his  blood  in  your  veins.  Don't  forget  that.  I  sup- 
pose you  want  to  make  him  go  back  to  you,  Mrs.  Leek, 
as  he  certainly  ought." 

"Ye-es,"  murmured  Mrs.  Leek  feebly. 

"Well,  if  you  can  persuade  him  to  go,"  said  Alice, 
"if  you  can  make  him  see  his  duty,  you're  welcome. 
But  I'm  sorry  for  you.  I  think  I  ought  to  tell  you  that 
this  is  my  house,  and  my  furniture.  He's  got  nothing 
at  all.  I  expect  he  never  could  save.  Many's  the  blow 
he's  laid  on  me  in  anger,  but  all  the  same  I  pity  him. 
I  pity  him.  And  I  wouldn't  like  to  leave  him  in  the 
lurch.  Perhaps  these  three  strong  young  men'Il  be 
able  to  do  something  with  him.  But  I'm  not  sure. 
He's  very  strong.  And  he  has  a  way  of  leaping  out  so 
sudden  like." 

Mrs.  Leek  shook  her  head  as  memories  of  the  past 
rose  up  in  her  mind. 

"The  fact  is,"  said  Matthew  sternly,  "he  ought  to 
be  prosecuted  for  bigamy.  That's  what  ought  to  be 
done." 

"Most  decidedly,"  Henry  concurred. 

"You're  quite  right!  You're  quite  right!"  said  Alice. 
"That's  only  justice.  Of  course  he'd  deny  that  he  was 
the  same  Henry  Leek.  He'd  deny  it  like  anything. 
But  in  the  end  I  daresay  you'd  be  able  to  prove  it. 
The  worst  of  these  law  cases  is  they're  so  expensive.  It 
means  private  detectives  and  all  sorts  of  things,  I  be- 


l80  6URIED  ALIVE. 

lieve.  Of  course  there'd  be  the  scandal.  But  don't 
mind  me!  I'm  innocent.  Everybody  knows  me  in 
Putney,  and  has  done  this  twenty  years.  I  don't  know 
how  it  would  suit  you,  Mr.  Henry  and  Mr.  Matthew,  as 
clergymen,  to  have  your  own  father  in  prison.  That's 
as  may  be.  But  justice  is  justice,  and  there's  too  many 
men  going  about  deceiving  simple,  trusting  women.  I've 
often  heard  such  tales.  Now  I  know  they're  all  true. 
It's  a  mercy  my  own  poor  mother  hasn't  lived  to  see 
where  I  am  to-day.  As  for  my  father,  old  as  he  was, 
if  he'd  been  alive,  there'd  have  been  horse- whipping, 
that  I  do  know." 

After  some  rather  pointless  and  disjointed  remarks 
from  the  curates,  a  sound  came  from  the  corner  near 
the  door.     It  was  John's  cough. 

"Better  clear  out  of  this!"  John  ejaculated.  Such 
was  his  first  and  last  oral  contribution  to  the  scene. 


IN  THE  BATH. 

Priam  Farll  was  wandering  about  the  uncharted 
groves  of  Wimbledon  Common,  and  uttering  soliloquies 
in  language  that  lacked  delicacy.  He  had  rushed 
forth,  in  his  haste,  without  an  overcoat,  and  the  weather 
was  blusterously  inclement.  But  he  did  not  feel  the 
cold;  he  only  felt  the  keen  wind  of  circumstance. 

Soon  after  the  purchase  of  his  picture  by  the  lunatic 


IN  THE  BATH.  18  I 

landlord  of  a  fully  licensed  house,  he  had  discovered 
that  the  frame-maker  in  High  Street  knew  a  man  who 
would  not  be  indisposed  to  buy  such  pictures  as  he 
could  paint,  and  transactions  between  him  and  the 
frame-maker  had  developed  into  a  regular  trade.  The 
usual  price  paid  for  canvases  was  ten  pounds,  in  cash. 
By  this  means  he  had  earned  about  two  hundred  a 
year.  No  questions  were  put  on  either  side.  The 
paintings  were  delivered  at  intervals,  and  the  money  re- 
ceived; and  Priam  knew  no  more.  For  many  weeks  he 
had  lived  in  daily  expectation  of  an  uproar,  a  scandal 
in  the  art- world,  visits  of  police,  and  other  incon- 
veniences, for  it  was  difficult  to  believe  that  the  pictures 
would  never  come  beneath  the  eye  of  a  first-class  ex- 
pert. But  nothing  had  occurred,  and  he  had  gradually 
subsided  into  a  sense  of  security.  He  was  happy; 
happy  in  the  untrammelled  exercise  of  his  gift,  happy 
in  having  all  the  money  that  his  needs  and  Alice's 
demanded;  happier  than  he  had  been  in  the  errant 
days  of  his  glory  and  his  wealth.  Alice  had  been 
amazed  at  his  power  of  earning;  and  also,  she  had 
seemed  little  by  little  to  lose  her  suspicions  as  to  his 
perfect  sanity  and  truthfulness.  In  a  word,  the  dog  of 
fate  had  slept;  and  he  had  taken  particular  care  to  let 
it  lie.  He  was  in  that  species  of  sheltered  groove  which 
is  absolutely  essential  to  the  bliss  of  a  shy  and  nervous 
artist,  however  great  he  may  be. 


1 82  BXmiED  ALIVE. 

And  now  this  disastrous  irruption,  this  resurrection 
of  the  early  sins  of  the  real  Leek!  He  was  hurt;  he 
was  startled;  he  was  furious.  But  he  was  not  sur- 
prised. The  wonder  was  that  the  early  sins  of  Henry 
Leek  had  not  troubled  him  long  ago.  What  could  he 
do?  He  could  do  nothing.  That  was  the  tragedy:  he 
could  do  nothing.  He  could  but  rely  upon  Alice,  Alice 
was  amazing.  The  more  he  thought  of  it,  the  more 
masterly  her  handling  of  these  preposterous  curates 
seemed  to  him.  And  was  he  to  be  robbed  of  this  in- 
comparable woman  by  ridiculous  proceedings  connected 
with  a  charge  of  bigamy?  He  knew  that  bigamy  meant 
prison,  in  England.  The  injustice  was  monstrous.  He 
saw  those  curates,  and  their  mute  brother,  and  the 
aggrieved  mother  of  the  three  dogging  him  either  to 
prison  or  to  his  deathbed!  And  how  could  he  explain 
to  Alice?  Impossible  to  explain  to  Alice!  .  .  .  Still,  it 
was  conceivable  that  Alice  would  not  desire  explanation. 
Alice  somehow  never  did  desire  an  explanation.  She 
always  said,  "I  can  quite  understand,"  and  set  about 
preparing  a  meal.  She  was  the  comfortablest  cushion 
of  a  creature  that  the  evolution  of  the  universe  had 
ever  produced. 

Then  the  gusty  breeze  dropped  and  it  began  to 
rain.  He  ignored  the  rain.  But  December  rain  has  a 
strange,  horrid  quality  of  chilly  persistence.  It  is 
capable   of  conquering   the  most  obstinate  and  serious 


IN  THE  BATH.  1 83 

mental  preoccupation,  and  it  conquered  Priam's.  It 
forced  him  to  admit  that  his  tortured  soul  had  a  fleshly 
garment  and  that  the  fleshly  garment  was  soaked  to  the 
marrow.  And  his  soul  gradually  yielded  before  the 
attack  of  the  rain,  and  he  went  home. 

He  put  his  latchkey  into  the  door  with  minute  pre- 
cautions against  noise,  and  crept  into  his  house  like  a 
thief,  and  very  gently  shut  the  door.  Then,  in  the  hall, 
he  intently  listened.  Not  a  sound!  That  is  to  say, 
not  a  sound  except  the  drippings  of  his  hat  on  the 
linoleum.  The  sitting-room  door  was  ajar.  He  timidly 
pushed  it,  and  entered.     Alice  was  darning  stockings. 

"Henry!"  she  exclaimed.  "Why,  you're  wet 
through!"     She  rose. 

"Have  they  cleared  off?"  he  demanded. 

"And  you've  been  out  without  an  overcoat!  Henry, 
how  could  you?  Well,  I  must  get  you  into  bed  at  once 
— instantly,  or  I  shall  have  you  down  with  pneumonia 
or  something  to-morrow!" 

"Have  they  cleared  off?"  he  repeated. 

"Yes,  of  course,"  she  said. 

"When  are  they  coming  back?"  he  asked. 

"I  don't  think  they'll  come  back,"  she  replied.  "I 
think  they've  had  enough.  I  think  I've  made  them  see 
that  it's  best  to  leave  well  alone.  Did  you  ever  see 
such  toast  as  that  curate  made?" 

"Alice,  I  assure  you,"  he  said,  later — he  was  in  a 


184  BURIED   ALIVE. 

boiling  bath— "I  assure  you  it's  all  a  mistake.  "I've 
never  seen  the  woman  before." 

"Of  course  you  haven't,"  she  said  calmingly.  "Of 
course  you  haven't.  Besides,  even  if  you  had,  it  serves 
her  right.  Everyone  could  see  she's  a  nagging  woman. 
And  they  seemed  quite  prosperous.  They're  hysterical 
—that's  what's  the  matter  with  them,  all  of  them— ex- 
cept the  eldest,  the  one  that  never  spoke.  I  rather 
liked  him." 

"But  I  haven't!"  he  reiterated,  splashing  his  positive 
statement  into  the  water. 

"My  dear,  I  know  you  haven't." 

But  he  guessed  that  she  was  humouring  him.  He 
guessed  that  she  was  determined  to  keep  him  at  all 
costs.  And  he  had  a  disconcerting  glimpse  of  the 
depths  of  utter  unscrupulousness  that  sometimes  disclose 
themselves  in  the  mind  of  a  good  and  loving  woman. 

"Only  I  hope  there  won't  be  any  more  of  them!" 
she  added  dryly. 

Ah!  That  was  the  point!  He  conceived  the  pos- 
sibility of  the  rascal  Leek  having  committed  scores  and 
scores  of  sins,  all  of  which  might  come  up  against  him. 
His  affrighted  vision  saw  whole  regions  populated  by 
disconsolate  widows  of  Henry  Leek  and  their  offspring, 
ecclesiastical  and  otherwise.  He  knew  what  Leek  had 
been.  Westminster  Abbey  was  a  strange  goal  for  Leek 
to  have  achieved. 


A  GLOSSY  MALE.  1 85 


CHAPTER    IX. 

A    GLOSSY    MALE. 

The  machine  was  one  of  those  electric  contrivances 
that  do  their  work  noiselessly  and  efficiently,  like  a 
garrotter  or  the  guillotine.  No  odour,  no  teeth-disturbing 
grind  of  rack -and -pinion,  no  trumpeting,  with  that 
machine!  It  arrived  before  the  gate  with  such  absence 
of  sound  that  Alice,  though  she  was  dusting  in  the  front- 
room,  did  not  hear  it.  She  heard  nothing  till  the  bell 
discreetly  tinkled.  Justifiably  assuming  that  the  tinkler 
was  the  butcher's  boy,  she  went  to  the  door  with  her 
apron  on,  and  even  with  the  duster  in  her  hand.  A 
handsome,  smooth  man  stood  on  the  step,  and  the 
electric  carriage  made  a  background  for  him.  He  was 
a  dark  man,  with  curly  black  hair,  and  a  moustache  to 
match,  and  black  eyes.  His  silk  hat,  of  an  incredible 
smooth  newness,  glittered  over  his  glittering  hair  and 
eyes.  His  overcoat  was  lined  with  astrakan,  and  this 
important  fact  was  casually  betrayed  at  the  lapels  and 
at  the  sleeves.  He  wore  a  black  silk  necktie,  with  a 
small  pearl  pin  in  the  mathematical  centre  of  the  perfect 
rhomboid   of  the   upper   part   of  a   sailor's   knot.     His 


I  86  BURIED   ALIVE. 

gloves  were  of  slate  colour.  The  chief  characteristic  of 
his  faintly  striped  trousers  was  the  crease,  which  seemed 
more  than  mortal.  His  boots  were  of  glace  kid  and  as 
smooth  as  his  cheeks.  The  cheeks  had  a  fresh  boyish 
colour,  and  between  them,  over  admirable  snowy  teeth, 
projected  the  hooked  key  to  this  temperament.  It  is 
possible  that  Alice,  from  sheer  thoughtlessness,  shared 
the  vulgar  prejudice  against  Jews;  but  certainly  she  did 
not  now  feel  it.  The  man's  personal  charm,  his  exceed- 
ing niceness,  had  always  conquered  that  prejudice, 
whenever  encountered.  Moreover,  he  was  only  about 
thirty-five  in  years,  and  no  such  costly  and  beautiful 
male  had  ever  yet  stood  on  Alice's  doorstep. 

She  at  once,  in  her  mind,  contrasted  him  with  the 
curates  of  the  previous  week,  to  the  disadvantage  of  the 
Established  Church.  She  did  not  know  that  this  man 
was  more  dangerous  than  a  thousand  curates. 

"Is  this  Mr.  Leek's?"  he  inquired  smilingly,  and 
raised  his  hat. 

"Yes,"  said  Alice  with  a  responsive  smile. 

"Is  he  in?" 

"Well,"  said  Alice,  "he's  busy  at  his  work.  You 
see  in  this  weather  he  can't  go  out  much — not  to  work 
— and  so  he " 

"Could  I  see  him  in  his  studio?"  asked  the  glossy 
man,  with  the  air  of  saying,  "Can  you  grant  me  this 
supreme  favour?" 


A   GLOSSY  MALE.  I  87 

It  was  the  first  time  that  Ahce  had  heard  the  attic 
called  a  studio.     She  paused. 

"It's  about  pictures,"  explained  the  visitor. 

"Oh!"  said  Alice.     "Will  you  come  in?" 

"I've  run  down  specially  to  see  Mr.  Leek,"  said  the 
visitor  with  emphasis. 

Alice's  opinion  as  to  the  seriousness  of  her  husband's 
gift  for  painting  had  of  course  changed  in  two  years. 
A  man  who  can  make  two  or  three  hundred  a  year  by 
sticking  colours  anyhow,  at  any  hazard,  on  canvasses — 
by  producing  alleged  pictures  that  in  Alice's  secret  view 
bore  only  a  comic  resemblance  to  anything  at  all — that 
man  had  to  be  taken  seriously  in  his  attic  as  an  artisan. 
It  is  true  that  Alice  thought  the  payment  he  received 
miraculously  high  for  the  quality  of  work  done;  but, 
with  this  agreeable  Jew  in  the  hall,  and  the  coupe  at  the 
kerb,  she  suddenly  perceived  the  probability  of  even 
greater  miracles  in  the  matter  of  price.  She  saw  the 
average  price  of  ten  pounds  rising  to  fifteen,  or  even 
twenty,  pounds — provided  her  husband  was  given  no 
opportunity  to  ruin  the  affair  by  his  absurd,  retiring 
shyness. 

"Will  you  come  this  way?"  she  suggested  briskly. 

And  all  that  elegance  followed  her  up  to  the  attic 
door:  which  door  she  threw  open,  remarking  simply — 

"Henry,  here  is  a  gentleman  come  to  see  you  about 
pictures." 


BURIED  ALIVE. 


A  CONNOISSEUR. 


Priam  recovered  more  quickly  than  might  have  been 
expected.  His  first  thought  was  naturally  that  women 
are  uncalculated,  if  not  incalculable,  creatures,  and  that 
the  best  of  them  will  do  impossible  things — things  in- 
conceivable till  actually  done!  Fancy  her  introducing  a 
stranger,  without  a  word  of  warning,  direct  into  his 
attic!  However,  when  he  rose  he  saw  the  visitor's  nose 
(whose  nostrils  were  delicately  expanding  and  contract- 
ing in  the  fumes  of  the  oil-stove),  and  he  was  at  once 
reassured.  He  knew  that  he  would  have  to  face  neither 
rudeness,  nor  bluntness,  nor  lack  of  imagination,  nor 
lack  of  quick  sympathy.  Besides,  the  visitor,  with 
practical  assurance,  set  the  tone  of  the  interview  in- 
stantly. 

"Good  morning,  inailre,"  he  began,  right  off.  "I 
must  apologise  for  breaking  in  upon  you.  But  I've 
come  to  see  if  you  have  any  work  to  sell.  My  name  is 
Oxford,  and  I'm  acting  for  a  collector." 

He  said  this  with  a  very  agreeable  mingling  of 
sincerity,  deference,  and  mercantile  directness,  also  with 
a  bright,  admiring  smile.  He  showed  no  astonishment 
at  the  interior  of  the  attic. 

Maitre! 

Well,  of  course,  it  would  be  idle  to  pretend  that  the 


A   CONNOISSEUR.  l8g 

greatest  artists  do  not  enjoy  being  addressed  as  niaitre. 
'Master'    is   the   same  word,   but  entirely  different.     It 
was    a    long   time   since   Priam   Farll    had   been   called 
maitre.     Indeed,   owing   to  his  retiring  habits,   he  had 
very  seldom  been  called  maitre  at  all.     A  just-finished 
picture   stood   on   an  easel  near  the  window;   it  repre- 
sented  one   of  the   most  wonderful  scenes  in  London: 
Putney  High  Street  at  night;  two  omnibus  horses  stepped 
strongly   and   willingly   out   of  a  dark  side  street,   and 
under  the  cold  glare  of  the  main  road  they  somehow 
took  on  the  quality  of  equestrian  sculpture.     The  alter- 
cation   of   lights    was   in   the   highest   degree   complex. 
Priam    understood   immediately,    from   the   man's   calm 
glance   at  the   picture,    and   the   position  which  he  in- 
stinctively took  up  to  see  it,  that  he  was  accustomed  to 
looking  at  pictures.     The  visitor  did  not  start  back,  nor 
rush  forward,  nor  dissolve  into  hysterics,   nor  behave  as 
though  confronted  by  the  ghost  of  a  murdered  victim. 
He  just  gazed   at   the  picture,   keeping  his  nerve  and 
holding  his  tongue.    And  yet  it  was  not  an  easy  picture 
to   look   at.     It   was  a  picture  of  an  advanced  experi- 
mentalism,  and  would  have  appealed  to  nothing  but  the 
sense  of  humour  in  a  person  not  a  connoisseur. 

"Sell!"  exclaimed  Priam.  Like  all  shy  men  he 
could  hide  his  shyness  in  an  exaggerated  familiarity. 
"What  price  this?"     And  he  pointed  to  the  picture. 

There  were  no  other  preliminaries. 


igO  BURIED   ALIVE. 

"It  is  excessively  distinguished,"  murmured  Mr.  Ox- 
ford, in  the  accents  of  expert  appreciation.  "Exces- 
sively distinguished.     May  I  ask  how  much?" 

"That's  what  I'm  asking  you,"  said  Priam,  fiddhng 
with  a  paint  rag. 

"Hum!"  observed  Mr.  Oxford,  and  gazed  in  silence. 
Then:  "Two  hundred  and  fifty?" 

Priam  had  virtually  promised  to  deliver  that  picture 
to  the  picture-framer  on  the  next  day,  and  he  had  not 
expected  to  receive  a  penny  more  than  twelve  pounds 
for  it.     But  artists  are  strange  organisms. 

He  shook  his  head.  Although  two  hundred  and 
fifty  pounds  was  as  much  as  he  had  earned  in  the 
previous  twelve  months,  he  shook  his  grey  head. 

"No?"  said  Mr.  Oxford  kindly  and  respectfully, 
putting  his  hands  behind  his  back.  "By  the  way,"  he 
turned  with  eagerness  to  Priam,  "I  presume  you  have 
seen  the  portrait  of  Ariosto  by  Titian  that  they've  bought 
for  the  National  Gallery?  What  is  your  opinion  of  it, 
viaitre?"     He  stood  expectant,  glowing  with  interest. 

"Except  that  it  isn't  Ariosto,  and  it  certainly  isn't 
by  Titian,  it's  a  pretty  high-class  sort  of  thing,"  said 
Priam. 

Mr.  Oxford  smiled  with  appreciative  content,  nod- 
ding his  head.  "I  hoped  you  would  say  so,"  he  re- 
marked. And  swiftly  he  passed  on  to  Segantini,  then 
to  J.  W.  Morrice,  and  then  to  Bonnard,  demanding  the 


A   CONNOISSEUR.  IQl 

maitre's  views.  In  a  few  moments  they  were  really 
discussing  pictures.  And  it  was  years  since  Priam  had 
hstened  to  the  voice  of  informed  commonsense  on  the 
subject  of  painting.  It  was  years  since  he  had  heard 
anything  but  exceeding  puerility  concerning  pictures. 
He  had,  in  fact,  accustomed  himself  not  to  listenj  he 
had  excavated  a  passage  direct  from  one  ear  to  the 
other  for  such  remarks.  And  now  he  drank  up  the 
conversation  of  Mr.  Oxford,  and  perceived  that  he  had 
long  been  thirsty.  And  he  spoke  his  mind.  He  grew 
warmer,  more  enthusiastic,  more  impassioned.  And  Mr. 
Oxford  listened  with  ecstasy.  Mr.  Oxford  had  ap- 
parently a  natural  discretion.  He  simply  accepted 
Priam,  as  he  stood,  for  a  great  painter.  No  reference 
to  the  enigma  why  a  great  painter  should  be  painting 
in  an  attic  in  Werter  Road,  Putney!  No  inconvenient 
queries  about  the  great  painter's  previous  history  and 
productions.  Just  the  frank,  full  acceptance  of  his 
genius!     It  was  odd,  but  it  was  comfortable. 

"So  you  won't  take  two  hundred  and  fifty?"  asked 
Mr.  Oxford,  hopping  back  to  business. 

"No,"  said  Priam  sturdily.  "The  truth  is,"  he  added, 
"I  should  rather  like  to  keep  that  picture  for  myself" 

"Will  you  take  five  hundred,  maitre?" 

"Yes,  I  suppose  I  will,"  and  Priam  sighed.  A 
genuine  sigh!  For  he  would  really  have  liked  to  keep 
the  picture.     He  knew  he  had  never  painted  a  better. 


192  GURIED   ALIVE. 

"And  may  I  carry  it  away  with  me?"  asked  Mr. 
Oxford. 

"I  expect  so,"  said  Priam. 

"I  wonder  if  I  might  venture  to  ask  you  to  come 
back  to  town  with  me?"  Mr.  Oxford  went  on,  in  gentle 
deference.  "I  have  one  or  two  pictures  I  should  very 
much  like  you  to  see,  and  I  fancy  they  might  give  you 
pleasure.  And  we  could  talk  over  future  business.  If 
possibly  you  could  spare  an  hour  or  so.  If  I  might 
request " 

A  desire  rose  in  Priam's  breast  and  fought  against 
his  timidity.  The  tone  in  which  Mr.  Oxford  had  said 
"I  fancy  they  might  give  you  pleasure"  appeared  to 
indicate  something  very  much  out  of  the  common.  And 
Priam  could  scarcely  recollect  when  last  his  eyes  liad 
rested  on  a  picture  that  was  at  once  unfamiliar  and 
great. 


PARFITTS'  GALLERIES. 

I  have  already  indicated  that  the  machine  was 
somewhat  out  of  the  ordinary.  It  was,  as  a  fact,  ex- 
ceedingly out  of  the  ordinary.  It  was  much  larger  than 
electric  carriages  usually  are.  It  had  what  the  writers 
of  "motoring  notes"  in  papers  written  by  the  wealthy 
for  the  wealthy  love  to  call  a  "limousine  body."  And 
outside  and  in,   it  was  miraculously  new   and  spotless. 


PARFITTS'   GALLERIES.  1 93 

On  the  ivory  handles  of  its  doors,  on  its  soft  yellow 
leather  upholstery,  on  its  cedar  woodwork,  on  its  patent 
blind  apparatus,  on  its  silver  fittings,  on  its  lamps,  on 
its  footstools,  on  its  silken  arm-slings — not  the  minutest 
trace  of  usage!  Mr.  Oxford's  car  seemed  to  show  that 
Mr.  Oxford  never  used  a  car  twice,  purchasing  a  new 
car  every  morning,  like  stockbrokers  their  silk  hats,  or 
the  Duke  of  Selsea  his  trousers.  There  was  a  table  in 
the  "body"  for  writing,  and  pockets  up  and  down  de- 
vised to  hold  documents,  also  two  armchairs,  and  a 
suspended  contrivance  which  showed  the  hour,  the 
temperature,  and  the  fluctuations  of  the  barometer; 
there  was  also  a  speaking-tube.  One  felt  that  if  the 
machine  had  been  connected  by  wireless  telegraphy  with 
the  Stock  Exchange,  the  leading  studios  and  the  Houses 
of  Parliament,  and  if  a  little  restaurant  had  been  con- 
structed in  the  rear,  Mr.  Oxford  might  never  have  been 
under  the  necessity  of  leaving  the  car;  that  he  might 
have  passed  all  his  days  in  it  from  morn  to  latest 
eve. 

The  perfection  of  the  machine  and  of  Mr.  Oxford's 
attire  and  complexion  caused  Priam  to  look  rather 
shabby.  Indeed,  he  was  rather  shabby.  Shabbiness 
had  slightly  overtaken  him  in  Putney.  Once  he  had 
been  a  dandy;  but  that  was  in  the  lamented  Leek's 
time.  And  as  the  car  glided,  without  smell  and  without 
noise,  through  the  encumbered  avenues  of  London  to- 

Buried  Alive,  I  j 


ig4  BURIED   ALIVE. 

wards  the  centre,  now  shooting  forward  Hke  a  star,  now 
stopping  with  gentle  suddenness,  now  swerving  in  a 
swift  curve  round  a  vehicle  earthy  and  leaden-wheeled, 
Priam  grew  more  and  more  uncomfortable.  He  had 
sunk  into  a  groove  at  Putney.  He  never  left  Putney, 
save  occasionally  to  refresh  himself  at  the  National 
Gallery,  and  thither  he  invariably  went  by  train  and 
tube,  because  the  tube  always  filled  him  with  wonder 
and  romance,  and  always  threw  him  up  out  of  the  earth 
at  the  corner  of  Trafalgar  Square  with  such  a  strange 
exhilaration  in  his  soul.  So  that  he  had  not  seen  the 
main  avenues  of  London  for  a  long  time.  He  had  been 
forgetting  riches  and  luxury,  and  the  oriental  cigarette- 
shops  whose  proprietors'  names  end  in  "opoulos,"  and 
the  haughtiness  of  the  ruling  classes,  and  the  still  sterner 
haughtiness  of  their  footmen.  He  had  now  abandoned 
Alice  in  Putney.  And  a  mysterious  demon  seized  him 
and  gripped  him,  and  sought  to  pull  him  back  in  the 
direction  of  the  simplicity  of  Putney,  and  struggled  with 
him  fiercely,  and  made  him  writhe  and  shrink  before 
the  brilliant  phenomena  of  London's  centre,  and  indeed 
almost  pitched  him  out  of  the  car  and  set  him  running 
as  hard  as  legs  would  carry  to  Putney.  It  was  the 
demon  which  we  call  habit.  He  would  have  given  a 
picture  to  be  in  Putney,  instead  of  swimming  past  Hyde 
Park  Corner  to  the  accompaniment  of  Mr.  Oxford's 
amiable  and  deferential  and  tactful  conversation. 


PARTITTS'   GALLERIES.  1 95 

However,  his  other  demon,  shyness,  kept  him  from 
imperiously  stopping  the  car. 

The  car  stopped  itself  in  Bond  Street,  in  front  of  a 
building  with  a  wide  archway,  and  the  symbol  of  empire 
floating  largely  over  its  roof.  Placards  said  that  ad- 
mission through  the  archway  was  a  shilling;  but  Mr. 
Oxford,  bearing  Priam's  latest  picture  as  though  it  had 
cost  fifty  thousand  instead  of  five  hundred  pounds,  went 
straight  into  the  place  without  paying,  and  Priam  ac- 
cepted his  impressive  invitation  to  follow.  Aged  military 
veterans  whose  breasts  carried  a  row  of  medals  saluted 
Mr.  Oxford  as  he  entered,  and,  within  the  penetralia, 
beings  in  silk  hats  as  faultless  as  Mr.  Oxford's  raised 
those  hats  to  Mr.  Oxford,  who  did  not  raise  his  in  reply. 
Merely  nodded,  Napoleonically!  His  demeanour  had 
greatly  changed.  You  saw  here  the  man  of  unbending 
will,  accustomed  to  use  men  as  pawns  in  the  chess  of 
a  complicated  career.  Presently  they  reached  a  private 
office  where  Mr.  Oxford,  with  the  assistance  of  a  page, 
removed  his  gloves,  furs,  and  hat,  and  sent  sharply  for 
a  man  who  at  once  brought  a  frame  which  fitted  Priam's 
picture. 

"Do  have  a  cigar,"  Mr.  Oxford  urged  Priam,  with 
a  quick  return  to  his  earlier  manner,  oflering  a  box  in 
which  each  cigar  was  separately  encased  in  gold-leaf. 
The  cigar  was  such  as  costs  a  crown  in  a  restaurant, 
half-a-crown   in   a  shop,   and   twopence  in  Amsterdam. 


Ig6  ■  BURIED   ALIVE. 

It  was  a  princely  cigar,  with  the  odour  of  paradise  and 
an  ash  as  white  as  snow.  But  Priam  could  not  appre- 
ciate it.  No!  He  had  seen  on  a  beaten  copper  plate 
under  the  archway  these  words:  "Parfitts'  Galleries." 
He  was  in  the  celebrated  galleries  of  his  former  dealers, 
whom  by  the  way  he  had  never  seen.  And  he  was 
afraid.  He  was  mortally  apprehensive,  and  had  a  sickly 
sensation  in  the  stomach. 

After  they  had  scrupulously  inspected  the  picture, 
through  the  clouds  of  incense,  Mr.  Oxford  wrote  out  a 
cheque  for  five  hundred  pounds,  and,  cigar  in  mouth, 
handed  it  to  Priam,  who  tried  to  take  it  with  a  casual 
air  and  did  not  succeed.     It  was  signed  "Parfitts'," 

"I  daresay  you  have  heard  that  I'm  now  the  sole 
proprietor  of  this  place,"  said  Mr.  Oxford  through  his 
cigar. 

"Really!"  said  Priam,  feeling  just  as  nervous  as  an 
inexperienced  youth. 

Then  Mr.  Oxford  led  Priam  over  thick  carpets  to  a 
saloon  where  electric  light  was  thrown  by  means  of  re- 
flectors onto  a  small  but  incomparable  band  of  pictures. 
Mr.  Oxford  had  not  exaggerated.  They  did  give  plea- 
sure to  Priam.  They  were  not  the  pictures  one  sees 
every  day,  nor  once  a  year.  There  was  the  finest 
Delacroix  of  its  size  that  Priam  had  ever  met  with;  also 
a  Vermeer  that  made  it  unnecessary  to  visit  the  Ryks 
Museum.      And    on    the   more   distant   wall,    to   which 


PARFITTS'   GALLERIES.  '197 

Mr.  Oxford  came  last,  in  a  place  of  marked  honour, 
was  an  evening  landscape  of  Volterra,  a  hill-town  in 
Italy.  The  bolts  of  Priam's  very  soul  started  when  he 
caught  sight  of  that  picture.  On  the  lower  edge  of  the 
rich  frame  were  two  words  in  black  lettering:  "Priam 
Farll."  How  well  he  remembered  painting  it!  And 
how  masterfully  beautiful  it  was! 

"Now  that,"  said  Mr.  Oxford,  "is  in  my  humble 
opinion  one  of  the  finest  Farlls  in  existence.  What  do 
you  think,  Mr.  Leek?" 

Priam  paused.     "I  agree  with  you,"  said  he. 

"Farll,"  said  Mr.  Oxford,  "is  about  the  only  modern 
painter  that  can  stand  the  company  that  that  picture 
has  in  this  room,  eh?" 

Priam  blushed.     "Yes,"  he  said. 

There  is  a  considerable  difference,  in  various  mat- 
ters, between  Putney  and  Volterra;  but  the  picture  of 
Volterra  and  the  picture  of  Putney  High  Street  were 
obviously,  strikingly,  incontestably,  by  the  same  hand; 
one  could  not  but  perceive  the  same  brushwork,  the 
same  masses,  the  same  manner  of  seeing  and  of  grasp- 
ing, in  a  word  the  same  dazzling  and  austere  transla- 
tion of  nature.  The  resemblance  jumped  at  one  and 
shook  one  by  the  shoulders.  It  could  not  have  escaped 
even  an  auctioneer.  Yet  Mr.  Oxford  did  not  refer  to 
it.     He  seemed  quite  blind  to  it.     All  he  said  was,  as 


igS  BURIED   ALIVE. 

they  left  the  room,  and  Priam  finished  his  rather  mono- 
syllabic praise — • 

"Yes,  that's  the  little  collection  I've  just  got  to- 
gether, and  I  am  very  proud  to  have  shown  it  to 
you.  Now  I  want  you  to  come  and  lunch  with  me  at 
my  club.  Please  do,  I  should  be  desolated  if  you  re- 
fused." 

Priam  did  not  care  a  halfpenny  about  the  desola- 
tion of  Mr.  Oxford;  and  he  most  sincerely  objected  to 
lunch  at  Mr.  Oxford's  club.  But  he  said  "Yes"  be- 
cause it  was  the  easiest  thing  for  his  shyness  to  do, 
Mr.  Oxford  being  a  determined  man.  Priam  was  afraid 
to  go.  He  was  disturbed,  alarmed,  affrighted,  by  the 
mystery  of  Mr.  Oxford's  silence. 

They  arrived  at  the  club  in  the  car. 


THE  CLUB. 

Priam  had  never  been  in  a  club  before.  The  state- 
ment may  astonish,  may  even  meet  with  incredulity, 
but  it  is  true.  He  had  left  the  land  of  clubs  early  in 
life.  As  for  the  English  clubs  in  European  towns,  he 
was  familiar  with  their  exteriors,  and  with  the  amiable 
babble  of  their  supporters  at  tables  d'hote,  and  his  de- 
sire for  further  knowledge  had  not  been  so  hot  as  to 
inconvenience  him.     Hence  he  knew  nothing  of  clubs. 

Mr,  Oxford's  club  alarmed  and  intimidated  him;   it 


THE   CLUB.  IQ9 

was  SO  big  and  so  black.  Externally  it  resembled  a 
town-hall  of  some  great  industrial  town.  As  you  stood 
on  the  pavement  at  the  bottom  of  the  flight  of  giant 
steps  that  led  to  the  first  pair  of  swinging  doors,  your 
head  was  certainly  lower  than  the  feet  of  a  being  who 
examined  you  sternly  from  the  other  side  of  the  glass. 
Your  head  was  also  far  below  the  sills  of  the  mighty 
windows  of  the  ground- floor.  There  were  two  storeys 
above  the  ground-floor,  and  above  them  a  projecting 
eave  of  carven  stone  that  threatened  the  uplifted  eye 
like  a  menace.  The  tenth  part  of  a  slate,  the  merest 
chip  of  a  corner,  falling  from  the  lofty  summit  of  that 
pile,  would  have  slain  elephants.  And  all  the  fa9ade 
was  black,  black  with  ages  of  carbonic  deposit.  The 
notion  that  the  building  was  a  town-hall  that  had  got 
itself  misplaced  and  perverted  gradually  left  you  as  you 
gazed.  You  perceived  its  falseness.  You  perceived 
that  Mr.  Oxford's  club  was  a  monument,  a  relic  of  the 
days  when  there  were  giants  on  earth,  that  it  had  come 
down  unimpaired  to  a  race  of  pigmies,  who  were  making 
the  best  of  it.  The  sole  descendant  of  the  giants  was 
the  scout  behind  the  door.  As  Mr.  Oxford  and  Priam 
climbed  towards  it,  this  unique  giant,  with  a  giant's 
force,  pulled  open  the  gigantic  door,  and  Mr.  Oxford 
and  Priam  walked  imperceptibly  in,  and  the  door  swung 
to  with  a  large  displacement  of  air,  Priam  found  him- 
self in   an   immense   interior,    under   a   distant    carved 


200  BURIED   ALIVE. 

ceiling,  far,  far  upwards,  like  heaven.  He  watched  Mr. 
Oxford  write  his  name  in  a  gigantic  folio,  under  a 
gigantic  clock.  This  accomplished,  Mr.  Oxford  led 
him  past  enormous  vistas  to  right  and  left,  into  a  very 
long  chamber,  both  of  whose  long  walls  were  studded 
with  thousands  upon  thousands  of  massive  hooks — and 
here  and  there  upon  a  hook  a  silk  hat  or  an  overcoat. 
Mr.  Oxford  chose  a  couple  of  hooks  in  the  expanse, 
and  when  they  had  divested  themselves  sufficiently  he 
led  Priam  forwards  into  another  great  chamber  evidently 
meant  to  recall  the  baths  of  Caracalla.  In  gigantic 
basins  chiselled  out  of  solid  granite,  Priam  scrubbed 
his  finger-nails  with  a  nail-brush  larger  than  he  had 
previously  encountered,  even  in  nightmares,  and  an  at- 
tendant brushed  his  coat  with  a  utensil  that  resembled 
a  weapon  of  offence  lately  the  property  of  Anak. 

"Shall  we  go  straight  to  the  dining-room  now,"  asked 
Mr.  Oxford,  "or  will  you  have  a  gin  and  angostura  first?" 

Priam  declined  the  gin  and  angostura,  and  they 
went  up  an  overwhelming  staircase  of  sombre  marble, 
and  through  other  apartments  to  the  dining-room, 
which  would  have  made  an  excellent  riding-school. 
Here  one  had  six  of  the  gigantic  windows  in  a  row, 
each  with  curtains  that  fell  in  huge  folds  from  the  un- 
seen into  the  seen.  The  ceiling  probably  existed.  On 
every  wall  were  gigantic  paintings  in  thick  ornate 
frames,  and  between  the  windows  stood  heroic  busts  of 


THE   CLUB.  20 1 

marble  set  upon  columns  of  basalt.  The  chairs  would 
have  been  immovable  had  they  not  run  on  castors  of 
weight-resisting  rock,  yet  against  the  tables  they  had 
the  air  of  negligible  toys.  At  one  end  of  the  room  was 
a  sideboard  that  would  not  have  groaned  under  an  ox 
whole,  and  at  the  other  a  fire,  over  which  an  ox  might 
have  been  roasted  in  its  entirety,  leaped  under  a  mantel- 
piece upon  which  Goliath  could  not  have  put  his  elbows. 
All  was  silent  and  grave;  the  floors  were  everywhere 
covered  with  heavy  carpets  which  hushed  all  echoes. 
There  was  not  the  faintest  sound.  Sound,  indeed,  seemed 
to  be  deprecated.  Priam  had  already  passed  the  wide 
entrance  to  one  illimitable  room  whose  walls  were 
clothed  with  warnings  in  gigantic  letters:  "Silence." 
And  he  had  noticed  that  all  chairs  and  couches  were 
thickly  padded  and  upholstered  in  soft  leather,  and 
that  it  was  impossible  to  produce  in  them  the  slightest 
creak.  At  a  casual  glance  the  place  seemed  unoc- 
cupied, but  on  more  careful  inspection  you  saw  midgets 
creeping  about,  or  seated  in  easy-chairs  that  had  ob- 
viously been  made  to  hold  two  of  them;  these  midgets 
were  the  members  of  the  club,  dwarfed  into  dolls  by 
its  tremendous  dimensions.  A  strange  and  sinister  race! 
They  looked  as  though  in  the  final  stages  of  decay, 
and  wherever  their  heads  might  rest  was  stretched  a 
white  cloth,  so  that  their  heads  might  not  touch  the 
spots  sanctified  by  the  heads  of  the  mighty  departed. 


202  BURIED  ALIVE. 

They  rarely  spoke  to  one  another,  but  exchanged  re- 
gards of  mutual  distrust  and  scorn;  and  if  by  chance 
they  did  converse  it  was  in  tones  of  weary,  brusque 
disillusion.  They  could  at  best  descry  each  other  but 
indistinctly  in  the  universal  pervading  gloom — a  gloom 
upon  which  electric  lamps,  shining  dimly  yellow  in  their 
vast  lustres,  produced  almost  no  impression.  The 
whole  establishment  was  buried  in  the  past,  dreaming 
of  its  Titanic  yore,  when  there  were  doubtless  giants 
who  could  fill  those  fauteuiis  and  stick  their  feet  on 
those  mantelpieces. 

It  was  in  such  an  environment  that  Mr.  Oxford 
gave  Priam  to  eat  and  to  drink  off  little  ordinary  plates 
and  out  of  tiny  tumblers.  No  hint  of  the  club's  im- 
memorial history  in  that  excessively  modern  and  ex- 
cellent repast — save  in  the  Stilton  cheese,  which  seemed 
to  have  descended  from  the  fine  fruity  days  of  some 
Homeric  age,  a  cheese  that  Ulysses  might  have  in- 
augurated. I  need  hardly  say  that  the  total  effect  on 
Priam's  temperament  was  disastrous.  (Yet  how  could 
the  diplomatic  Mr.  Oxford  have  guessed  that  Priam 
had  never  been  in  a  club  before?)  It  induced  in  him 
a  speechless  anguish,  and  he  would  have  paid  a  sum 
as  gigantic  as  the  club — he  would  have  paid  the  very 
cheque  in  his  pocket — never  to  have  met  Mr.  Oxford. 
He  was  a  far  too  sensitive  man  for  a  club,  and  his 
moods   were   incalculable.     Assuredly  Mr.   Oxford   had 


t 

.    THE  CLUE.  203 

miscalculated  the  result  of  his  club  on  Priam's  humour; 
he  soon  saw  his  error. 

"Suppose  we  take  coffee  in  the  smoking-room?" 
he  said. 

The  populous  smoking-room  was  the  one  part  of 
the  club  where  talking  with  a  natural  loudness  was  not 
a  crime.  Mr.  Oxford  found  a  corner  fairly  free  from 
midgets,  and  they  established  themselves  in  it,  and 
liqueurs  and  cigars  accompanied  the  coffee.  You  could 
actually  see  midgets  laughing  outright  in  the  mist  of 
smoke;  the  chatter  narrowly  escaped  being  a  din;  and 
at  intervals  a  diminutive  boy  entered  and  bawled  the 
name  of  a  midget  at  the  top  of  his  voice.  Priam  was 
suddenly  electrified,  and  Mr.  Oxford,  very  alert,  noticed 
the  electrification. 

Mr.  Oxford  drank  his  coffee  somewhat  quickly,  and 
then  he  leaned  forward  a  little  over  the  table,  and  put 
his  moon-like  face  nearer  to  Priam's,  and  arranged  his 
legs  in  a  truly  comfortable  position  beneath  the  table, 
and  expelled  a  large  quantity  of  smoke  from  his  cigar. 
It  was  clearly  the  preliminary  to  a  scene  of  confidence, 
the  approach  to  the  crisis  to  which  he  had  for  several 
hours  been  leading  up. 

Priam's  heart  trembled. 

"What  is  your  opinion,  maiire,"  he  asked,  "of  the 
ultimate  value  of  Farll's  pictures?" 

Priam   was   in   misery.     Mr.   Oxford's   manner   was 


204  BURIED  ALIVE. 

deferential,  amiable  and  expectant.  But  Priam  did  not 
know  what  to  say.  He  only  knew  what  he  would  do  if 
he  could  have  found  the  courage  to  do  it:  run  away, 
recklessly,  unceremoniously,  out  of  that  club. 

"I — I  don't  know,"  said  Priam,  visibly  whitening. 

"Because  I've  bought  a  goodish  few  Farlls  in  my 
time,"  Mr.  Oxford  continued,  "and  I  must  say  Pve  sold 
them  well.  Pve  only  got  that  one  left  that  I  showed 
you  this  morning,  and  I've  been  wondering  whether  I 
should  stick  to  it  and  wait  for  a  possible  further  rise,  or 
sell  it  at  once." 

"How  much  can  you  sell  it  for?"  Priam  mumbled. 

"I  don't  mind  telling  you,"  said  Mr.  Oxford,  "that 
I  fancy  I  could  sell  it  for  a  couple  of  thousand.  It's 
rather  small,  but  it's  one  of  the  finest  in  existence." 

"I  should  sell  it,"  said  Priam,  scarcely  audible. 

"You  would?  Well,  perhaps  you're  right.  It's  a 
question,  in  my  mind,  whether  some  other  painter  may 
not  turn  up  one  of  these  days  who  would  do  that  sort 
of  thing  even  better  than  Farll  did  it.  I  could  imagine 
the  possibility  of  a  really  clever  man  coming  along  and 
imitating  Farll  so  well  that  only  people  like  yourself^ 
maitre,  and  perhaps  me,  could  tell  the  difference.  It's 
just  the  kind  of  work  that  might  be  brilliantly  imitated, 
if  the  imitator  was  clever  enough,  don't  you  think?" 

"But  what  do  you  mean?"  asked  Priam,  perspiring 
in  his  back. 


THE  CLUB.  505 

"Well,"  said  Mr.  Oxford  vaguely,  "one  never  knows. 
The  style  might  be  imitated,  and  the  market  flooded 
with  canvases  practically  as  good  as  Farll's.  Nobody 
might  find  it  out  for  quite  a  long  time,  and  then  there 
might  be  confusion  in  the  public  mind,  followed  by  a 
sharp  fall  in  prices.  And  the  beauty  of  it  is  that  the 
public  wouldn't  really  be  any  the  worse.  Because  an 
imitation  that  no  one  can  distinguish  from  the  original 
is  naturally  as  good  as  the  original.  You  take  me? 
There's  certainly  a  tremendous  chance  for  a  man  w^ho 
could  seize  it,  and  that's  why  I'm  inclined  to  accept 
your  advice  and  sell  my  one  remaining  Farll." 

He  smiled  more  and  more  confidentially.  His  gaze 
was  charged  with  a  secret  meaning.  He  seemed  to  be 
suggesting  unspeakable  matters  to  Priam.  That  bright 
face  wore  an  expression  which  such  faces  wear  on  such 
occasions — an  expression  cheerfully  insinuating  that 
after  all  there  is  no  right  and  no  wrong — or  at  least 
that  many  things  which  the  ordinary  slave  of  convention 
would  consider  to  be  wrong  are  really  right.  So  Priam 
read  the  expression. 

"The  dirty  rascal  wants  me  to  manufacture  imita- 
tions of  myself  for  him!"  Priam  thought,  full  of  sudden, 
hidden  anger.  "He's  known  all  along  that  there's  no 
difference  between  what  I  sold  him  and  the  picture  he's 
already  had.  He  wants  to  suggest  that  we  should  come 
to  terms.     He's  simply  been  playing  a  game  with  me 


206  BURIED   ALIVE. 

up  to  now."  And  he  said  aloud,  "I  don't  know  that 
I  advise  you  to  do  anything.  I'm  not  a  dealer,  Mr. 
Oxford." 

He  said  it  in  a  hostile  tone  that  ought  to  have 
silenced  Mr.  Oxford  for  ever,  but  it  did  not.  Mr.  Ox- 
ford curved  away,  like  a  skater  into  a  new  figure,  and 
began  to  expatiate  minutely  upon  the  merits  of  the 
Volterra  picture.  He  analysed  it  in  so  much  detail, 
and  lauded  it  with  as  much  justice,  as  though  the  pic- 
ture was  there  before  them.  Priam  was  astonished  at 
the  man's  exactitude.  "Scoundrel!  He  knows  a  thing 
or  two!"  reflected  Priam  grimly. 

"You  don't  think  I  overpraise  it,  do  you,  cher 
mailre?"  Mr.  Oxford  finished,  still  smiling. 

"A  little,"  said  Priam. 

If  only  Priam  could  have  run  away!  But  he  couldn't! 
Mr.  Oxford  had  him  well  in  a  corner.  No  chance  of 
freedom!     Besides,  he  was  over  fifty  and  stout. 

"Ah!  Now  I  was  expecting  you  to  say  that!  Do 
you  mind  telling  me  at  what  period  you  painted  it?" 
Mr.  Oxford  inquired,  very  blandly,  though  his  hands 
were  clasped  in  a  violent  tension  that  forced  the  blood 
from  the  region  of  the  knuckle-joints. 

This  was  the  crisis  which  Mr.  Oxford  had  been 
leading  up  to!  All  the  time  Mr.  Oxford's  teethy  smile 
had  concealed  a  knowledge  of  Priam's  identity ! 


THE   SECRET.  207 


CHAPTER    X. 
THE  SECRET. 

"What  do  you  mean?"  asked  Priam  Farll.  But  he 
put  the  question  weakly,  and  he  might  just  as  well  have 
said,  "I  know  what  you  mean,  and  I  would  pay  a  mil- 
lion pounds  or  so  in  order  to  sink  through  the  floor." 
A  few  minutes  ago  he  would  only  have  paid  five  hun- 
dred pounds  or  so  in  order  to  run  simply  away.  Now 
he  wanted  Maskelyne  miracles  to  happen  to  him.  The 
universe  seemed  to  be  caving  in  about  the  ears  of 
Priam  Farll. 

Mr.  Oxford  was  still  smiling;  smiling,  however,  as  a 
man  holds  his  breath  for  a  v.-ager.  You  felt  that  he 
could  not  keep  it  up  much  longer. 

"You  are  Priam  Farll,  aren't  you?"  said  Mr.  Oxford 
in  a  very  low  voice. 

"What  makes  you  think  I'm  Priam  Farll?" 

"I  think  you  are  Priam  Farll  because  you  painted 
that  picture  I  bought  from  you  this  morning,  and  I  am 
sure  that  no  one  but  Priam  Farll  could  have  painted  it." 

"Then  you've  been  playing  a  game  with  me  all 
morning!" 


208  BURIED  ALIVE, 

"Please  don't  put  it  like  that,  cher  mailre,"  Mr.  Ox- 
ford whispering]}'  pleaded.  "I  only  wished  to  feel  ray 
ground.  I  know  that  Priam  Farll  is  supposed  to  have 
been  buried  in  Westminster  Abbey.  But  for  me  the 
existence  of  that  picture  of  Putney  High  Street,  ob- 
viously just  painted,  is  an  absolute  proof  that  he  is  not 
buried  in  Westminster  Abbey,  and  that  he  still  lives. 
It  is  an  amazing  thing  that  there  should  have  been  a 
mistake  at  the  funeral,  an  utterly  amazing  thing,  which 
involves  all  sorts  of  consequences!  But  that's  not  my 
business.  Of  course  there  must  be  clear  reasons  for 
what  occurred.  I  am  not  interested  in  them — I  mean 
not  professionally.  I  merely  argue,  when  I  see  a  certain 
picture,,  with  the  paint  still  wet  on  it:  'That  picture  was 
painted  by  a  certain  painter,  I  am  an  expert,  and  I 
stake  my  reputation  on  it.'  It's  no  use  telling  me  that 
the  painter  in  question  died  several  years  ago  and  was 
buried  with  national  honours  in  Westminster  Abbey.  I 
say  it  couldn't  have  been  so.  I'm  a  connoisseur.  And 
if  the  facts  of  his  death  and  burial  don't  agree  with  the 
result  of  my  connoisseurship,  I  say  they  aren't  facts.  I 
say  there's  been  a — a  misunderstanding  about — er — 
corpses.  Now,  chcr  tnailre,  what  do  you  think  of  my 
position?"  Mr.  Oxford  drummed  lightly  on  the  table. 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Priam.    Which  was  another  lie. 

"You  are  Priam  Farll,  aren't  you?"  Mr.  Oxford  per- 
sisted. 


TtlE   SECRET.  209 

"Well,  if  you  will  have  it,"  said  Priam  savagely,  "I 
am.     And  now  you  know!" 

Mr.  Oxford  let  his  smile  go.  He  had  held  it  for 
an  incredible  time.  He  let  it  go,  and  sighed  a  gentle 
and  profound  relief.  He  had  been  skating  over  the 
thinnest  ice,  and  had  reached  the  bank  amid  terrific 
crackings,  and  he  began  to  appreciate  the  extent  of  the 
peril  braved.  He  had  been  perfectly  sure  of  his  con- 
noisseurship.  But  when  one  says  one  is  perfectly  sure, 
especially  if  one  says  it  with  immense  emphasis,  one 
always  means  "imperfectly  sure."  So  it  was  with  Mr. 
Oxford.  And  really,  to  argue,  from  the  mere  existence 
of  a  picture,  that  a  tremendous  deceit  had  been  success- 
fully practised  upon  the  most  formidable  of  nations, 
implies  rather  more  than  rashness  on  the  part  of  the 
arguer. 

"But  I  don't  want  it  to  get  about,"  said  Priam,  still 
in  a  savage  whisper.  "And  I  don't  want  to  talk  about 
it."  He  looked  at  the  nearest  midgets  resentfully, 
suspecting  them  of  eavesdropping. 

"Precisely,"  said  Mr.  Oxford,  but  in  a  tone  that 
lacked  conviction. 

"It's  a  matter  that  only  concerns  me,"  said  Priam. 

"Precisely,"  Mr.  Oxford  repeated.  "At  least  it 
ought  to  concern  only  you.  And  I  can't  assure  you  too 
positively  that  I'm  the  last  person  in  the  world  to  want 
to  pry;  but— " 

Buried  Alive,  1 4 


2IO  BURIED   ALIVE. 

"You  must  kindly  remember,"  said  Priam,  inter- 
rupting, "that  you  bought  that  picture  this  morning 
simply  as  a  picture,  on  its  merits.  You  have  no 
authority  to  attach  my  name  to  it,  and  I  must  ask  you 
not  to  do  so." 

"Certainly,"  agreed  Mr.  Oxford.  "I  bought  it  as  a 
masterpiece,  and  I'm  quite  content  with  my  bargain.  I 
want  no  signature." 

"I  haven't  signed  my  pictures  for  twenty  years," 
said  Priam. 

"Pardon  me,"  said  Mr.  Oxford.  "Every  square  inch 
of  every  one  is  unmistakably  signed.  You  could  not  put 
a  brush  on  a  canvas  without  signing  it.  It  is  the 
privilege  of  only  the  greatest  painters  not  to  put  letters 
on  the  corners  of  their  pictures  in  order  to  keep  other 
painters  from  taking  the  credit  for  them  afterwards.  For 
me,  all  your  pictures  are  signed.  But  there  are  some 
people  who  want  more  proof  than  connoisseurship  can 
give,  and  that's  where  the  trouble  is  going  to  be." 

"Trouble?"  said  Priam,  with  an  intensification  of  his 
misery. 

"Yes,"  said  Mr.  Oxford.  "I  must  tell  you,  so  that 
you  can  understand  the  situation."  He  became  very 
solemn,  showing  that  he  had  at  last  reached  the  real 
point.  "Some  time  ago  a  man,  a  little  dealer,  came  to 
me  and  offered  me  a  picture  that  I  instantly  recognised 
as  one  of  yours.     I  bought  it." 


THE  SECRET.  211 

"How  much  did  you  pay  for  it?"  Priam  growled. 

After  a  pause  Mr.  Oxford  said,  "I  don't  mind  giving 
you  the  figure.     I  paid  fifty  pounds  for  it." 

"Did  you!"  exclaimed  Priam,  perceiving  that  some 
person  or  persons  had  made  four  hundred  per  cent,  on 
his  work  by  the  time  it  had  arrived  at  a  big  dealer. 
"Who  was  the  fellow?" 

"Oh,  a  little  dealer.  Nobody.  Jew,  of  course." 
Mr.  Oxford's  way  of  saying  "Jew"  was  ineffably  ironic. 
Priam  knew  that,  being  a  Jew,  the  dealer  could  not  be 
his  fiame-maker,  who  was  a  pure-bred  Yorkshireman 
from  Ravensthorpe.  Mr.  Oxford  continued,  "I  sold  that 
picture  and  guaranteed  it  to  be  a  Priam  Farll." 

"The  devil  you  did!" 

"Yes.    I  had  sufficient  confidence  in  my  judgment." 

"Who  bought  it?" 

"Whitney  C.  Witt,  of  New  York.  He's  an  old  man 
now,  of  course.  I  expect  you  remember  him,  cher 
mailre."  Mr.  Oxford's  eyes  twinkled.  "I  sold  it  to 
him,  and  of  course  he  accepted  my  guarantee.  Soon 
afterwards  I  had  the  offer  of  other  pictures  obviously  by 
you,  from  the  same  dealer.  And  I  bought  them.  I 
kept  on  buying  them.  I  daresay  Pve  bought  forty 
altogether." 

"Did  your  little  dealer  guess  whose  work  they  were?" 
Priam  demanded  suspiciously. 

"Not   he!     If  he   had  done,   do  you  suppose  he'd 


212  BURIED   ALIVE. 

have  parted  with  them  for  fifty  pounds  apiece?  Mind, 
at  first  I  thought  I  was  buying  pictures  painted  before 
your  supposed  death.  I  thought,  hke  the  rest  of  the 
world,  that  you  were — in  the  Abbey.  Then  I  began  to 
have  doubts.  And  one  day  when  a  bit  of  paint  came  off 
on  my  thumb,  I  can  tell  you  I  was  startled.  However, 
I  stuck  to  my  opinion,  and  I  kept  on  guaranteeing  the 
pictures  as  Farlls." 

"It  never  occurred  to  you  to  make  any  inquiries?" 

"Yes,  it  did,"  said  Mr.  Oxford.  "I  did  my  best  to 
find  out  from  the  dealer  where  he  got  the  pictures  from, 
but  he  wouldn't  tell  me.  Well,  I  sort  of  scented  a 
mystery.  Now  I've  got  no  professional  use  for  mysteries, 
and  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  I'd  better  just  let 
this  one  alone.     So  I  did." 

"Well,  why  don't  you  keep  on  leaving  it  alone?" 
Priam  asked. 

"Because  circumstances  won't  let  me.  I  sold 
practically  all  those  pictures  to  Whitney  C.  Witt,  It 
was  all  right.  Anyhow  I  thought  it  was  all  right.  I 
put  Parfitts'  name  and  reputation  on  their  being  yours. 
And  then  one  day  I  heard  from  Mr.  Witt  that  on  the 
back  of  the  canvas  of  one  of  the  pictures  the  name  of 
the  canvas-makers,  and  a  date,  had  been  stamped,  with  a 
rubber  stamp,  and  that  the  date  was  after  your  sup- 
posed burial,  and  that  his  London  solicitors  had  made 
inquiries  from  the  artist's-material  people  here,  and  these 


THE  SECRET.  213 

people  were  prepared  to  prove  that  the  canvas  was  made 
after  Priam  Farll's  funeral.     You  see  the  fix?" 

Priam  did. 

"My  reputation — Parfitts' — is  at  stake.  If  those 
pictures  aren't  by  you,  Fm  a  swindler.  Parfitts'  name 
is  gone  for  ever,  and  there'll  be  the  greatest  scandal  that 
ever  was.  Witt  is  threatening  proceedings.  I  offered  to 
take  the  whole  lot  back  at  the  price  he  paid  me,  without 
any  commission.  But  he  won't.  He's  an  old  man;  a 
bit  of  a  maniac  I  expect,  and  he  won't.  He's  angry. 
He  thinks  he's  been  swindled,  and  what  he  says  is  that 
he's  going  to  see  the  thing  through.  I've  got  to  prove 
to  him  that  the  pictures  are  yours.  I've  got  to  show 
him  what  grounds  I  had  for  giving  my  guarantee.  Well, 
to  cut  a  long  story  short,  I've  found  you,  I'm  glad  to 
say!" 

He  sighed  again. 

"Look  here,"  said  Priam.  "How  much  has  Witt 
paid  you  altogether  for  my  pictures?" 

After  a  pause,  Mr.  Oxford  said,  "I  don't  mind 
giving  you  the  figure.  He's  paid  me  seventy- two 
thousand  pounds  odd."  He  smiled,  as  if  to  excuse 
himself 

When  Priam  Farll  reflected  that  he  had  received 
about  four  hundred  pounds  for  those  pictures — vastly 
less  than  one  per  cent,  of  what  the  shiny  and  prosperous 
dealer     had     ultimately    disposed    of    them    for,     the 


214  BURIED  ALIVE. 

traditional  fury  of  the  artist  against  the  dealer — of  the 
producer  against  the  parasitic  middleman — sprang  into 
flame  in  his  heart.  Up  till  then  he  had  never  had  any 
serious  cause  of  complaint  against  his  dealers.  (Ex- 
tremely successful  artists  seldom  have.)  Now  he  saw 
dealers,  as  the  ordinary  painters  see  them,  to  be  the 
authors  of  all  evil!  Now  he  understood  by  what 
methods  Mr.  Oxford  had  achieved  his  splendid  car, 
clothes,  club,  and  minions.  These  things  were  earned, 
not  by  Mr.  Oxford,  but /or  Mr.  Oxford  in  dingy  studios, 
even  in  attics,  by  shabby  industrious  painters!  Mr.  Ox- 
ford was  nothing  but  an  opulent  thief,  a  grinder  of  the 
face  of  genius.  Mr.  Oxford  was,  in  a  word,  the  spawn 
of  the  devil,  and  Priam  silently  but  sincerely  consigned 
him  to  his  proper  place. 

It  was  excessively  unjust  of  Priam.  Nobody  had 
asked  Priam  to  die.  Nobody  had  asked  him  to  give  up 
his  identity.  If  he  had  latterly  been  receiving  tens 
instead  of  thousands  for  his  pictures,  the  fault  was  his 
alone.  Mr.  Oxford  had  only  bought  and  only  sold; 
which  was  his  true  function.  But  Mr.  Oxford's  sin,  in 
Priam's  eyes,  was  the  sin  of  having  been  right. 

It  would  have  needed  less  insight  than  Mr.  Oxford 
had  at  his  disposal  to  see  that  Priam  Farll  was  taking 
the  news  very  badly. 

"For  both  our  sakes,  cher  maitre,"  said  Mr.  Oxford 
persuasively,  "I  think  it  will  be  advisable  for  you  to  put 


THE  SECRET,  215 

me  in  a  position  to  prove  that  my  guarantee  to  Witt 
was  justified." 

"Why  for  both  our  sakes?" 

"Because,  well,  I  shall  be  delighted  to  pay  you,  say 
:hirty-six  thousand  pounds  in  acknowledgment  of — 
er "    He  stopped. 

Probably  he  had  instantly  perceived  that  he  was 
committing  a  disastrous  error  of  tact.  Either  he  should 
hive  offered  nothing,  or  he  should  have  offered  the  whole 
sum  he  had  received  less  a  small  commission.  To  suggest 
dividing  equally  with  Priam  was  the  instinctive  impulse, 
the  fatal  folly,  of  a  born  dealer.  And  Mr.  Oxford  was 
a  bcrn  dealer. 

"I  won't  accept  a  penny,"  said  Priam.  "And  I 
can't  help  you  in  any  way.  I'm  afraid  I  must  go  now. 
I'm  late  as  it  is." 

His  cold  resistless  fury  drove  him  forward,  and, 
without  Ae  slightest  regard  for  the  amenities  of  clubs, 
he  left  tiie  table.  Mr.  Oxford,  becoming  more  and 
more  the  dealer,  rose  and  followed  him,  even  directed 
him  to  the  gigantic  cloak-room,  murmuring  the  while 
soft  persuasions  and  pacifications  in  Priam's  ear. 

"There  may  be  an  action  in  the  courts,"  said  Mr. 
Oxford  in  the  grand  entrance  hall,  "and  your  testimony 
would  be  indispensable  to  me." 

"I  can  have  nothing  to  do  with  it.     Good  day!" 

The    giant    at    the    door    could    scarce    open    the 


2l6  BURIED  ALIVE. 

gigantic  portal  quickly  enough  for  him.  He  fled— fled, 
surrounded  by  nightmare  visions  of  horrible  publicity  in 
a  law-court.  Unthinkable  tortures!  He  damned  Mr, 
Oxford  to  the  nethermost  places,  and  swore  that  he 
would  not  lift  a  finger  to  save  Mr.  Oxford  from  penal 
servitude  for  life.  < 


MONEY-GETTING. 

He  stood  on  the  kerb  of  the  monument,  talking  to 
himself  savagely.  At  any  rate  he  was  safely  outsde 
the  monument,  with  its  pullulating  population  of  midgets 
creeping  over  its  carpets  and  lounging  insignificant  on 
its  couches.  He  could  not  remember  clearly  wha:  had 
occurred  since  the  moment  of  his  getting  up  from  the 
table;  he  could  not  remember  seeing  anything  or  any- 
one on  his  way  out;  but  he  could  remember  the  per- 
suasive, deferential  voice  of  Mr.  Oxford  folloving  him 
persistently  as  far  as  the  giant's  door.  In  recollection 
that  club  was  like  an  abode  of  black  macjic  to  him;  it 
seemed  so  hideously  alive  in  its  deadness,  aad  its  doings 
were  so  absurd  and  mysterious.  "Silence,  silence!" 
commanded  the  white  papers  in  one  vast  chamber, 
and,  in  another,  babel  existed!  And  then  that  terrible 
mute  dining-room,  with  the  high,  unscalable  mantel- 
pieces that  no  midget  could  ever  reach !  He  kept  utter- 
ing the  most  dreadful  judgments  on  the   club    and  on 


MONEY-GETTING.  2  I  7 

Mr.  Oxford,  in  quite  audible  tones,  oblivious  of  the 
street.  He  was  aroused  by  a  rather  scared  man  salut- 
ing him.  It  was  Mr.  Oxford's  chauffeur,  waiting  patiently 
till  his  master  should  be  ready  to  re-enter  the  wheeled 
salon.  The  chauffeur  apparently  thought  him  either 
demented  or  inebriated,  but  his  sole  duty  was  to  salute, 
and  he  did  nothing  else. 

Quite  forgetting  that  this  chauffeur  was  a  fellow- 
creature,  Priam  immediately  turned  upon  his  heel,  and 
hurried  down  the  street.  At  the  corner  of  the  street 
was  a  large  bank,  and  Priam,  acquiring  the  reckless 
courage  of  the  soldier  in  battle,  entered  the  bank.  He 
had  never  been  in  a  London  bank  before.  At  first  it 
reminded  him  of  the  club,  with  the  addition  of  an 
enormous  placard  giving  the  day  of  the  month  as  a 
mystical  number — 14 — and  other  placards  displaying 
solitary  letters  of  the  alphabet.  Then  he  saw  that  it 
was  a  huge  menagerie  in  which  highly  trained  young 
men  of  assorted  sizes  and  years  were  confined  in  stout 
cages  of  wire  and  mahogany.  He  stamped  straight  to 
a  cage  with  a  hole  in  it,  and  threw  down  the  checjue 
for  five  hundred  pounds — defiantly. 

"Next  desk,  please,"  said  a  mouth  over  a  high 
collar  and  a  green  tie,  behind  the  grating,  and  a  dis- 
dainful hand  pushed  the  cheque  back  towards  Priam. 

"Next  desk!"  repeated  Priam,  dashed  but  furious. 

"This  is  the  A  to  M  desk,"  said  the  mouth. 


2l8  BURIED   AT.UTJ. 

Then  Priam  understood  the  solitary  letters,  and  he 
rushed,  with  a  new  accession  of  fury,  to  the  adjoining 
cage,  where  another  disdainful  hand  picked  up  the 
cheque  and  turned  it  over,  with  an  air  of  saying, 
"Fishy,  this!" 

And,  "It  isn't  endorsed!"  said  another  mouth  over 
another  high  collar  and  green  tie.  The  second  disdain- 
ful hand  pushed  the  cheque  back  again  to  Priam,  as 
though  it  had  been  a  begging  circular. 

"Oh,  if  that's  all!"  said  Priam,  who  could  scarcely 
speak  from  anger.  "Have  you  got  such  a  thing  as  a 
pen?" 

He  was  behaving  in  an  extremely  unreasonable 
manner.  He  had  no  right  to  visit  his  spleen  on  a 
perfectly  innocent  bank  that  paid  twenty-five  per  cent, 
to  its  shareholders  and  a  thousand  a  year  each  to 
its  directors,  and  what  trifle  was  left  over  to  its  men  in 
cages.  But  Priam  was  not  like  you  or  me.  Fie  did 
not  invariably  act  according  to  reason.  He  could  not 
be  angry  with  one  man  at  once,  nor  even  with  one 
building  at  once.  When  he  was  angry  lie  was  in- 
clusively and  miscellaneously  angry;  and  the  sun,  moon, 
and  stars  did  not  escape. 

After  he  had  endorsed  the  cheque  the  disdainful 
hand  clawed  it  up  once  more,  and  directed  upon  its 
obverse  and  upon  its  reverse  a  battery  of  suspicions; 
then  a  pair  of  eyes  glanced  with  critical  distrust  at  so 


MONEY-  GETTING.  2  1 Q 

much  of  Priam's  person  as  was  visible.  Then  the  eyes 
moved  back,  the  mouth  opened,  in  a  brief  word,  and 
lo!  there  were  four  eyes  and  two  mouths  over  the 
cheque,  and  four  eyes  for  an  instant  on  Priam.  Priam 
expected  someone  to  call  for  a  policeman;  in  spite  of 
himself  he  felt  guilty — or  anyhow  dubious.  It  was  the 
grossest  insult  to  him  to  throw  doubt  on  the  cheque 
and  to  examine  him  in  that  frigid,  shamelessly  dis- 
illusioned manner. 

"You  are  Mr.  Leek?"  a  mouth  moved. 

"Yes"  (very  slowly). 

"How  would  you  like  this?" 

"Pll  thank  you  to  give  it  me  in  notes,"  answered 
Priam  haughtily. 

When  the  disdainful  hand  had  counted  twice  every 
corner  of  a  pile  of  notes,  and  had  dropped  the  notes 
one  by  one,  with  a  peculiar  snapping  sound  of  paper, 
in  front  of  Priam,  Priam  crushed  them  together  and 
crammed  them  without  any  ceremony  and  without 
gratitude  to  the  giver,  into  the  right  pocket  of  his 
trousers.  And  he  stamped  out  of  the  building  with  curses 
on  his  lips. 

Still,  he  felt  better,  he  felt  assuaged.  To  cultivate 
and  nourish  a  grievance  when  you  have  five  hundred 
pounds  in  your  pocket,  in  cash,  is  the  most  difficult 
thing  in  the  world. 


220  BURIED  ALIVE. 

A  VISIT  TO   THE  TAILORS'. 

He  gradually  grew  calmer  by  dint  of  walking — • 
aimless,  fast  walking,  with  a  rapt  expression  of  the  eyes 
that  on  crowded  pavements  cleared  the  way  for  him 
more  effectually  than  a  shouting  footman.  And  then 
he  debouched  unexpectedly  onto  the  Embankment. 
Dusk  was  already  falling  on  the  noble  curve  of  the 
Thames,  and  the  mighty  panorama  stretched  before 
him  in  a  manner  mysteriously  impressive  which  has 
made  poets  of  less  poetic  men  than  Priam  Farll.  Grand 
hotels,  offices  of  millionaires  and  of  governments,  grand 
hotels,  swards  and  mullioned  windows  of  the  law,  grand 
hotels,  the  terrific  arches  of  termini,  cathedral  domes, 
houses  of  parliament,  and  grand  hotels,  rose  darkly 
around  him  on  the  arc  of  the  river,  against  the  dark 
violet  murk  of  the  sky.  Huge  trams  swam  past  him 
like  glass  houses,  and  hansoms  shot  past  the  trams  and 
automobiles  past  the  hansoms;  and  phantom  barges 
swirled  down  on  the  full  ebb,  threading  holes  in  bridges 
as  cotton  threads  a  needle.  It  was  London,  and  the 
roar  of  London,  majestic,  imperial,  super-Roman.  And 
lo!  earlier  than  the  earliest  municipal  light,  an  unseen 
hand,  the  hand  of  destiny,  printed  a  writing  on  the 
wall  of  vague  gloom  that  was  beginning  to  hide  the 
opposite  bank.  And  the  writing  said  that  Shipton's  tea 
was  the  best.      And   then  the  hand  wiped  largely  out 


A  VISIT  TO  THE  TAILORS'.  22  1 

that  message  and  wrote  in  another  spot  that  Mac- 
donnell's  whisky  was  the  best;  and  so  these  two  doc- 
trines, in  their  intermittent  pyrotechnics,  continued  to 
give  the  he  to  each  other  under  the  deepening  night. 
Quite  five  minutes  passed  before  Priam  perceived,  be- 
tween the  aUercating  doctrines,  the  high  scaffold-clad 
summit  of  a  building  which  was  unfamiliar  to  him.  It 
looked  serenely  and  immaterially  beautiful  in  the  evening 
twilight,  and  as  he  was  close  to  Waterloo  Bridge,  his 
curiosity  concerning  beauty  took  him  over  to  the  south 
bank  of  the  Thames. 

After  losing  himself  in  the  purlieus  of  Waterloo 
Station,  he  at  last  discovered  the  rear  of  the  building. 
Yes,  it  was  a  beautiful  thing;  its  tower  climbed  in 
several  coloured  storeys,  diminishing  till  it  expired  in  a 
winged  figure  on  the  sky.  And  below,  the  building 
was  broad  and  massive,  with  a  frontage  of  pillars  over 
great  arched  windows.  Two  cranes  stuck  their  arms 
out  from  the  general  mass,  and  the  whole  enterprise 
was  guarded  in  a  hedge  of  hoardings.  Through  the 
narrow  doorway  in  the  hoarding  came  the  flare  and  the 
hissing  of  a  Wells's  light.  Priam  Farll  glanced  timidly 
within.  The  interior  was  immense.  In  a  sort  of  court  of 
honour  a  group  of  muscular,  hairy  males,  silhouetted 
against  an  illuminated  lattice-work  of  scaffolding,  were 
chipping  and  paring  at  huge  blocks  of  stone.  It  was 
a  subject  for  a  Rembrandt. 


22  2  BURIED  ALIVTE. 

A  fat  untidy  man  meditatively  approached  the  door- 
way. He  had  a  roll  of  tracing  papers  in  his  hand,  and 
the  end  of  a  long,  thick  pencil  in  his  mouth.  He  was 
the  man  who  interpreted  the  dreams  of  the  architect  to 
the  dreamy  British  artisan.  Experience  of  life  had 
made  him  somewhat  brusque. 

"Look  here,"  he  said  to  Priam;  "what  the  devil  do 
you  want?" 

"What  the  devil  do  I  want?"  repeated  Priam,  who 
had  not  yet  altogether  fallen  away  from  his  mood  of 
universal  defiance.  "I  only  want  to  know  what  the 
h — 11  this  building  is." 

The  fat  man  was  a  little  startled.  He  took  his  pencil 
from  his  mouth,  and  spat. 

"It's  the  new  Picture  Gallery,  built  under  the  will 
of  that  there  Priam  Farll.  I  should  ha'  thought  you'd 
ha'  known  that."  Priam's  lips  trembled  on  the  verge  of 
an  exclamation,  "See  that?"  the  fat  man  pursued, 
pointing  to  a  small  board  on  the  hoarding.  The  board 
said,  "No  hands  wanted." 

The  fat  man  coldly  scrutinised  Priam's  appearance, 
from  his  greenish  hat  to  his  baggy  creased  boots. 

Priam  walked  away. 

He  was  dumfounded.  Then  he  was  furious  again. 
He  perfectly  saw  the  humour  of  the  situation,  but  it 
was  not  the  kind  of  humour  that  induced  rollicking 
laughter.     He  was  furious,  and  employed  the  language 


A  VISIT  TO   THE  TAILORS'.  223 

of  fury,  when  it  is  not  overheard.  Absorbed  by  his 
craft  of  painting,  as  in  the  old  Continental  days,  he  had 
long  since  ceased  to  read  the  newspapers,  and  though 
he  had  not  forgotten  his  bequest  to  the  nation,  he  had 
never  thought  of  it  as  taking  architectural  shape.  He 
was  not  aware  of  his  cousin  Duncan's  activities  for  the 
perpetuation  of  the  fiimily  name.  The  thing  staggered 
him.  The  probabilities  of  the  strange  consequences  of 
dead  actions  swept  against  him  and  overwhelmed  him. 
Once,  years  ago  and  years  ago,  in  a  resentful  mood,  he 
had  written  a  few  lines  on  a  piece  of  paper,  and  signed 
them  in  the  presence  of  witnesses.  Then  nothing- 
nothing  whatever— for  two  decades!  The  paper  slept 
.  .  .  and  now  this — this  tremendous  concrete  result  in 
the  heart  of  London!  It  was  incredible.  It  passed  the 
bounds  even  of  lawful  magic. 

His   palace,   his   museum!    The  fruit  of  a  captious 
hour! 

Ah!  But  he  was  furious.  Like  every  ageing  artist 
of  genuine  accomplishment,  he  knew — none  better — that 
there  is  no  satisfaction  save  the  satisfaction  of  fatigue 
after  honest  endeavour.  He  knew — none  better — that 
wealth  and  glory  and  fine  clothes  are  nought,  and  that 
striving  is  all.  He  had  never  been  happier  than  during 
the  last  two  years.  Yet  the  finest  souls  have  their  re- 
actions, their  rebellions  against  wise  reason.  And  Priam's 
soul  was  in  insurrection  then.     He  wanted  wealth  and 


2  24  BURIED   ALIVE. 

glory  and  fine  clothes  once  more.  It  seemed  to  him  that 
he  was  out  of  the  world  and  that  he  must  return  to  it. 
The  covert  insults  of  Mr.  Oxford  rankled  and  stung. 
And  the  fat  foreman  had  mistaken  him  for  a  workman 
cadging  for  a  job. 

He  walked  rapidly  to  the  bridge  and  took  a  cab  to 
Conduit  Street,  where  dwelt  a  firm  of  tailors  with  whose 
Paris  branch  he  had  had  dealings  in  his  dandiacal 
past. 

An  odd  impulse  perhaps,  but  natural, 

A  lighted  clock-tower — far  to  his  left  as  the  cab 
rolled  across  the  bridge — showed  that  a  legislative  pro- 
vidence was  watching  over  Israel. 


ALICE   ON  THE  SITUATION. 

"I  bet  the  building  alone  won't  cost  less  than  seventy 
thousand  pounds,"  he  said. 

He  was  back  again  with  Alice  in  the  intimacy  of 
Werter  Road,  and  relating  to  her,  in  part,  the  adventures 
of  the  latter  portion  of  the  day.  He  had  reached  home 
long  after  tea-time;  she,  with  her  natural  sagacity,  had 
not  waited  tea  for  him.  Now  she  had  prepared  a  rather 
special  tea  for  the  adventurer,  and  she  was  sitting  op- 
posite to  him  at  the  little  table,  with  nothing  to  do  but 
listen  and  refill  his  cup. 

"Well,"  she  said  mildly,  and  without  the  least  sur- 


ALICE   ON  THE   SITUATION.  2  25 

prise  at  his  figures,  "I  don't  know  what  he  could  have 
been  thinking  of — your  Priam  Farll!  I  call  it  just  silly. 
It  isn't  as  if  there  wasn't  enough  picture-galleries  already. 
When  what  there  are  are  so  full  that  you  can't  get  in 
— then  it  will  be  time  enough  to  think  about  fresh  ones. 
I've  been  to  the  National  Gallery  twice,  and  upon  my 
■word  I  was  almost  the  only  person  there!  And  it's  free 
too!  People  don't  watit  picture-galleries.  If  they  did 
they'd  go.  Who  ever  saw  a  public-house  empty,  or 
Peter  Robinson's?  And  you  have  to  pay  there!  Silly,  I 
call  it!  Why  couldn't  he  have  left  his  money  to  you,  or 
at  any  rate  to  the  hospitals,  or  something  of  that?  No, 
it  isn't  silly.     It's  scandalous!    It  ought  to  be  stopped!" 

Now  Priam  had  resolved  that  evening  to  make  a 
serious,  gallant  attempt  to  convince  his  wife  of  his  own 
identity.  He  was  approaching  the  critical  point.  This 
speech  of  hers  intimidated  him,  rather  complicated  his 
difficulties,  but  he  determined  to  proceed  bravely. 

"Have  you  put  sugar  in  this?"  he  asked. 

"Yes,"  she  said.  "But  you've  forgotten  to  stir  it. 
I'll  stir  it  for  you." 

A  charming  wifely  attention !     It  enheartened  him. 

"I  say,  Alice,"  he  said,  as  she  stirred,  "you  remem- 
ber when  first  I  told  you  I  could  paint?" 

"Yes,"  she  said. 

"Well,  at  first  you  thought  I  was  daft.  You  thought 
my  mind  was  wandering,  didn't  you?" 

Buried  Alive.  I  5 


2  26  EURIED    ALIVE. 

"No,"  she  said,  "I  only  thought  you'd  got  a  bee  in 
your  bonnet."     She  smiled  demurely. 

"Well,  I  hadn't,  had  I?" 

"Seeing  the  money  you've  made,  I  should  just  say 
you  hadn't,"  she  handsomely  admitted.  "Where  we 
should  be  without  it  I  don't  know." 

"You  were  wrong,  weren't  you?     And  I  was  right?"' 

"Of  course,"  she  beamed. 

"And  do  you  remember  that  time  I  told  you  I  was 
really  Priam  Farll?" 

She  nodded,  reluctantly. 

"You  thought  I  was  absolutely  mad.  Oh,  you 
needn't  deny  it!  I  could  see  well  enough  what  your 
thoughts  were." 

"I  thought  you  weren't  quite  well,"  she  said  frankly. 

"But  I  was,  my  child.  Now  I've  got  to  tell  you 
again  that  I  am  Priam  Farll.  Honestly  I  wish  I  wasn't, 
but  I  am.  The  deuce  of  it  is  that  that  fellow  that 
came  here  this  morning  has  found  it  out,  and  there's 
going  to  be  trouble.  At  least  there  has  been  trouble,^ 
and  there  may  be  more." 

She  was  impressed.     She  knew  not  what  to  say. 

"But,  Priam " 

"He's  paid  me  five  hundred  to-day  for  that  picture 
Pve  just  finished." 

"Five  hund "  ^ 

Priam    snatched    the    notes    from   his   pocket,    and 


ALICE   ON   THE    SITUATION.  227 

•with  a  gesture  pardonably  dramatic  he  bade  her  count 
them. 

"Count  them,"  he  repeated,  when  she  hesitated. 

"Is  it  right?"  he  asked  when  she  had  finished. 

"Oh,  it's  right  enough,"  she  agreed.  "But,  Priam, 
I  don't  hke  having  all  this  money  in  the  house.  You 
ought  to  have  called  and  put  it  in  the  bank." 

"Dash  the  bank!"  he  exclaimed.  "Just  keep  on 
listening  to  me,  and  try  to  persuade  yourself  I'm  not 
mad.  I  admit  I'm  a  bit  shy,  and  it  was  all  on  account 
of  that  that  I  let  that  d — d  valet  of  mine  be  buried  as 
me." 

"You  needn't  tell  me  you're  shy,"  she  smiled.  "All 
Putney  knows  you're  shy." 

"Pm  not  so  sure  about  that!"  He  tossed  his 
head. 

Then  he  began  at  the  beginning  and  recounted  to 
her  in  detail  the  historic  night  and  morning  at  Selwood 
Terrace,  with  a  psychological  description  of  his  feelings. 
He  convinced  her,  in  less  than  ten  minutes,  with  the 
powerful  aid  of  five  hundred  pounds  in  banknotes,  that 
he  in  truth  was  Priam  Farll. 

And  he  waited  for  her  to  express  an  exceeding 
astonishment  and  satisfaction. 

"Well,  of  course  if  you  are,  you  are,"  she  observed 
simply,  re^rding  him  with  benevolent,  possessive  glances 
across  the  table.     The  fact  was  that  she  did  not  deal 

15* 


2  20  BURIED   ALIVE. 

in  names,  she  dealt  in  realities.  He  was  her  reality, 
and  so  long  as  he  did  not  change  visibly  or  actually — 
so  long  as  he  remained  he — she  did  not  much  mind 
who  he  was.  She  added,  "But  I  really  don't  know 
what  you  were  dreaming  of,  Henry,  to  do  such  a 
thing ! " 

"Neither  do  I,"  he  muttered. 

Then  he  disclosed  to  her  the  whole  chicanery  of 
Mr.  Oxford. 

"It's  a  good  thing  you've  ordered  those  new  clothes," 
she  said. 

"Why?" 

"Because  of  the  trial." 

"The  trial  between  Oxford  and  Witt.  What's  that 
got  to  do  with  me?" 

"They'll  make  you  give  evidence." 

"But  I  sha'n't  give  evidence.  I've  told  Oxford  I'll 
have  nothing  to  do  with  it  at  all." 

"Suppose  they  make  you?  They  can,  you  know, 
with  a  sub — sub  something,  I  forget  its  name.  Then 
you'll  have  to  go  in  the  witness-box." 

"Me  in  the  witness-box!"  he  murmured,  undone. 

"Yes,"  she  said.  "I  expect  it'll  be  very  provoking 
indeed.  But  you'd  want  a  new  suit  for  it.  So  I'm 
glad   you    ordered   one.     When   are   you   going   to   try 

on?" 


AN  ESCAPE.  229 


CHAPTER   XI. 
AN  ESCAPE. 

One  night,  in  the  following  June,  Priam  and  Alice 
refrained  from  going  to  bed.  Alice  dozed  for  an  hour 
or  so  on  the  sofa,  and  Priam  read  by  her  side  in  an 
easy-chair,  and  about  two  o'clock,  just  before  the  first 
beginnings  of  dawn,  they  stimulated  themselves  into  a 
feverish  activity  beneath  the  parlour'  gas.  Alice  pre- 
pared tea,  bread-and-butter,  and  eggs,  passing  briskly 
from  room  to  room.  Alice  also  ran  upstairs,  cast  a  k\v 
more  things  into  a  valise  and  a  bag  already  partially 
packed,  and,  locking  both  receptacles,  carried  them 
downstairs.  Meantime  the  whole  of  Priam's  energy  was 
employed  in  having  a  bath  and  in  shaving.  Blood  was 
shed,  as  was  but  natural  at  that  ineffable  hour.  While 
Priam  consumed  the  food  she  had  prepared,  Alice  was 
continually  darting  to  and  fro  in  the  house.  At  one 
moment,  after  an  absence,  she  would  come  into  the 
parlour  with  a  mouthful  of  hatpins;  at  another  she 
would  rush  out  to  assure  herself  that  the  indispensable 
keys  of  the  valise  and  bag  with  her  purse  were  on  the 
umbrella-stand,    where    they    could    not    be    forgotten. 


2^0  BURIED  ALIVE. 

Between  her  excursions  she  would  drink  thirty  drops 
of  tea. 

"Now,  Priam,"  she  said  at  length,  "the  water's  hot. 
Haven't  you  finished?     It'll  be  getting  light  soon." 

"Water  hot?"  he  queried,  at  a  loss. 

"Yes,"  she  said.  "To  wash  up  these  things,  of 
course.  You  don't  suppose  I'm  going  to  leave  a  lot  of 
dirty  things  in  the  house,  do  you?  While  I'm  doing 
that  you  might  stick  labels  on  the  luggage." 

"They  won't  need  to  be  labelled,"  he  argued.  "We 
shall  take  them  with  us  in  the  carriage." 

"Oh,  Priam,"  she  protested,  "how  tiresome  you  are!" 

"I've  travelled  more  than  you  have."  He  tried  to 
laugh. 

"Yes,  and  fine  travelling  it  must  have  been,  too!  How- 
ever, if  you  don't  mind  the  luggage  being  lost,  I  don't." 

During  this  she  was  collecting  the  crockery  on  a 
tray,  with  which  tray  she  whizzed  out  of  the  room. 

In  ten  minutes,  hatted,  heavily  veiled,  and  gloved, 
she  cautiously  opened  the  front  door  and  peeped  forth 
into  the  lamplit  street.  She  peered  to  right  and  to  left. 
Then  she  went  as  far  as  the  gate  and  peered  again. 

"Is  it  all  right?"  whispered  Priam,  who  was  behind  her. 

"Yes,  I  think  so,"  she  whispered. 

Priam  came  out  of  the  house  with  the  bag  in  one 
hand  and  the  valise  in  the  other,  a  pipe  in  his  mouth, 
a  stick  under  his  arm,  and  an  overcoat  on  his  shoulder. 


AX   ESCAPE.  231 

Alice  ran  up  the  steps,  gazed  within  the  house,  pulled 
the  door  to  silently,  and  locked  it.  Then  beneath  the 
summer  stars  she  and  Priam  hastened  furtively,  as 
though  the  luggage  had  contained  swag,  up  Werter 
Road  towards  Oxford  Road.  When  they  had  turned 
the  corner  they  felt  very  much  relieved. 

They  had  escaped. 

It  was  their  second  attempt.  The  first,  made  in 
daylight,  had  completely  failed.  Their  cab  had  been 
followed  to  Paddington  Station  by  three  other  cabs  con- 
taining the  representatives  and  the  cameras  of  three 
Sunday  newspapers.  A  journalist  had  deliberately  ac- 
companied Priam  to  the  booking  office,  had  heard  him 
ask  for  two  seconds  to  Weymouth,  and  had  bought  a 
second  to  Weymouth  himself.  They  had  gone  to  Wey- 
mouth, but  as  within  two  hours  of  their  arrival  Wey- 
mouth had  become  even  more  impossible  than  Werter 
Road,  they  had  ignominiously  but  wisely  come  back. 

Werter  Road  had  developed  into  the  most  celebrated 
thoroughfare  in  London.  Its  photograph  had  appeared 
in  scores  of  newspapers,  with  a  cross  marking  the  abode 
of  Priam  and  Alice.  It  was  beset  and  infested  by 
journalists  of  several  nationalities  from  morn  till  night. 
Cameras  were  as  common  in  it  as  lamp-posts.  And  a 
famous  descriptive  reporter  of  the  Sunday  News  had 
got  lodgings,  at  a  high  figure,  exactly  opposite  Nr.  29. 
Priam   and   Alice   could   do   nothing   without    publicity. 


2 2,2  BURIED  ALIV'E. 

And  if  it  would  be  an  exaggeration  to  assert  that  even- 
ing papers  appeared  with  Stop-press  News:  "5.40. 
Mrs.  Leek  went  out  shopping,"  the  exaggeration  would 
not  be  very  extravagant.  For  a  fortnight  Priam  had  not 
been  beyond  the  door  during  daylight.  It  was  Alice  who, 
alarmed  by  Priam's  pallid  cheeks  and  tightened  nerves,  had 
devised  the  plan  of  flight  before  the  early  summer  dawn. 

They  reached  East  Putney  Station,  of  which  the 
gates  were  closed,  the  first  workman's  train  being  not 
yet  due.  And  there  they  stood.  Not  another  human 
being  was  abroad.  Only  the  clock  of  St.  Bude's  was 
faithfully  awakening  every  soul  within  a  radius  of  two 
hundred  yards  each  quarter  of  an  hour.  Then  a  porter 
came  and  opened  the  gate — it  was  still  exceedingly 
early — and  Priam  booked  for  Waterloo  in  triumph. 

"Oh,"  cried  Alice,  as  they  mounted  the  stairs,  "I 
quite  forgot  to  draw  up  the  blinds  at  the  front  of  the 
house."     And  she  stopped  on  the  stairs. 

"What  did  you  want  to  draw  up  the  blinds  for?" 

"If  they're  down  everybody  will  know  instantly  that 
we've  gone.     Whereas  if  I — " 

She  began  to  descend  the  stairs. 

"Alice!"  he  said  sharply,  in  a  strange  voice.  The 
muscles  of  his  white  face  were  drawn. 

"What?" 

"D — n  the  blinds.  Come  along,  or  upon  my  soul 
I'll  kill  you." 


THE   nation's    curiosity.  233 

She  realised  that  his  nerves  were  in  active  insur- 
rection, and  that  a  mere  nothing  might  bring  about  the 
fall  of  the  government. 

"Oh,  very  well!"  She  soothed  him  by  her  amiable 
obedience. 

In  a  quarter  of  an  hour  they  were  safely  lost  in  the 
wilderness  of  Waterloo,  and  the  newspaper  train  bore 
them  off  to  Bournemouth  for  a  few  days'  respite. 

the  nation's  curiosity. 

The  interest  of  the  United  Kingdom  in  the  unique 
case  of  Witt  v.  Parfitts  had  already  reached  apparently 
the  highest  possible  degree  of  intensity.  And  there  was 
reason  for  the  kingdom's  passionate  curiosity.  Whitney 
Witt,  the  plaintiff,  had  come  over  to  England,  with  his 
eccentricities,  his  retinue,  his  extreme  wealth  and  his 
failing  eyesight,  specially  to  fight  Parfitts.  A  half- 
pathetic  figure,  this  white-haired  man,  once  a  connois- 
seur, who,  from  mere  habit,  continued  to  buy  expensive 
pictures  when  he  could  no  longer  see  them!  Whitney 
Witt  was  implacably  set  against  Parfitts,  because  he  was 
convinced  that  Mr.  Oxford  had  sought  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  his  blindness.  There  he  was,  conducting 
his  action  regardless  of  expense.  His  apartments  and 
his  regal  daily  existence  at  the  Grand  Babylon  alone 
cost  a  fabulous  sum,  which  may  be  precisely  ascertained 


2  34  BURIED   ALIVE. 

by  reference  to  illustrated  articles  in  the  papers.  Then 
Mr.  Oxford,  the  youngish  Jew  who  had  acquired  Par- 
fitts,  who  was  Parfitts,  also  cut  a  picturesque  figure  on 
the  face  of  London.  He,  too,  was  spending  money  mth 
both  hands;  for  Parfitts  itself  was  at  stake.  Last  and 
most  disturbing,  was  the  individual  looming  mysteriously 
in  the  background,  the  inexplicable  man  who  lived  in 
Werter  Road,  and  whose  identity  would  be  decided  by 
the  judgment  in  the  case  of  Witt  v.  Parfitts.  If  Witt 
w'on  his  action,  then  Parfitts  might  retire  from  business. 
Mr.  Oxford  would  probably  go  to  prison  for  having  sold 
goods  on  false  pretences,  and  the  name  of  Henry  Leek, 
valet,  would  be  added  to  the  list  of  adventurous 
scoundrels  who  have  pretended  to  be  their  masters. 
But  if  Witt  should  lose — then  what  a  complication,  and 
what  further  enigmas  to  be  solved!  If  Witt  should 
lose,  the  national  funeral  of  Priam  Farll  had  been  a 
fraudulent  farce.  A  common  valet  lay  under  the  hallowed 
stones  of  the  Abbey,  and  Europe  had  mourned  in  vain! 
If  Witt  should  lose,  a  gigantic  and  unprecedented 
swindle  had  been  practised  upon  the  nation.  Then  the 
question  would  arise.  Why? 

Hence  it  was  not  surprising  that  popular  interest, 
nourished  by  an  indefatigable  and  excessively  enter- 
prising press,  should  have  mounted  till  no  one  would 
have  believed  that  it  could  mount  any  more.  But  the 
evasion  from  Werter  Road  on  that  June  morning  inten- 


THE  NATION'S   CURIOSITY.  235 

sified  the  interest  enormously.  Of  course,  owing  to  the 
drawn  blinds,  it  soon  became  known,  and  the  blood- 
hounds of  the  Sunday  papers  were  sniffing  along  the 
platforms  of  all  the  termini  in  London.  Priam's  de- 
parture greatly  prejudiced  the  cause  of  Mr.  Oxford, 
especially  when  the  bloodhounds  failed  and  Priam  per- 
sisted in  his  invisibility.  If  a  man  was  an  honest  man, 
why  should  he  flee  the  public  gaze,  and  in  the  night? 
There  was  but  a  step  from  the  posing  of  this  question 
to  the  inevitable  inference  that  Mr.  Oxford's  line  of 
defence  was  really  too  fantastic  for  credence.  Certainly 
organs  of  vast  circulation,  while  repeating  that,  as  the 
action  was  sub  judice,  they  could  say  nothing  about  it> 
had  already  tried  the  action  several  times  in  their  im- 
partial columns,  and  they  now  tried  it  again,  with  the 
entire  public  as  jury.  And  in  three  days  Priam  had 
definitely  become  a  criminal  in  the  public  eye,  a  criminal 
flying  from  justice.  Useless  to  assert  that  he  was  simply 
a  witness  subpenaed  to  give  evidence  at  the  trial!  He 
had  transgressed  the  unwritten  law  of  the  English  con- 
stitution that  a  person  prominent  in  a  cause  ce'lebre  be- 
longs for  the  time  being,  not  to  himself,  but  to  the 
nation  at  large.  He  had  no  claim  to  privacy.  In  sur- 
reptitiously obtaining  seclusion  he  was  merely  robbing 
the  public  and  the  public's  press  of  their  inalienable  right. 
Who  could  deny  now  the  reiterated  statement  that 
he  was  a  bigamist? 


230  BURIED  ALIVE. 

It  came  to  be  said  that  he  must  be  on  his  way  to 
South  America.  Then  the  pubUc  read  avidly  articles  by 
specially  retained  barristers  on  the  extradition  treaties  with 
Brazil,  Argentina,  Ecuador,  Chili,  Paraguay  and  Uruguay. 

The  curates  Matthew  and  Henry  preached  to  crowded 
congregations  at  Putney  and  Bermondsey,  and  were  re- 
ported verbatim  in  the  Christian  Voice  Sermon  Supple- 
ment,  and  other  messengers  of  light. 

And  gradually  the  nose  of  England  bent  closer  and 
closer  to  its  newspaper  of  a  morning.  And  coffee  went 
cold,  and  bacon  fat  congealed,  from  the  Isle  of  Wight 
to  Hexham,  while  the  latest  rumours  were  being  swal- 
lowed. It  promised  to  be  stupendous,  did  the  case  of 
Witt  V.  Parfitts.  It  promised  to  be  one  of  those  cases 
that  alone  make  life  worth  living,  that  alone  compensate 
for  the  horrors  of  climate,  in  England.  And  then  the 
day  of  hearing  arrived,  and  the  afternoon  papers  which 
appear  at  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning  announced  that 
Henry  Leek  (or  Priam  Farll,  according  to  your  wish) 
and  his  wife  (or  his  female  companion  and  willing  victim) 
had  returned  to  Werter  Road.  And  England  held  its 
breath;  and  even  Scotland  paused,  expectant;  and  Ire- 
land stirred  in  its  Celtic  dream. 

MENTION  OF  TWO  MOLES. 

The  theatre  in  which  the  emotional  drama  of  Witt 
V.   Parfitts   was   to   be   played,   lacked   the   usual    char- 


MENTION  OF  TWO   MOLES.  237 

acteristics  of  a  modern  place  of  entertainment.  It  was 
far  too  high  for  its  width  and  breadth;  it  was  badly 
illuminated;  it  was  draughty  in  winter  and  stuffy  in 
summer,  being  completely  deprived  of  ventilation.  Had 
it  been  under  the  control  of  the  County  Council  it 
would  have  been  instantly  condemned  as  dangerous  in 
case  of  fire,  for  its  gangways  were  always  encumbered  and 
its  exits  of  a  mediseval  complexity.  It  had  no  stage,  no 
footlights,  and  all  its  seats  were  of  naked  wood  except  one. 

This  unique  seat  was  occupied  by  the  principal 
player,  who  wore  a  humorous  wig  and  a  brilliant  and 
expensive  scarlet  costume.  He  was  a  fairly  able  judge, 
but  he  had  mistaken  his  vocation;  his  rare  talent  for 
making  third-rate  jokes  would  have  brought  him  a  for- 
tune in  the  world  of  musical  comedy.  His  salary  was 
a  hundred  a  week;  better  comedians  have  earned  less. 
On  the  present  occasion  he  was  in  the  midst  of  a  double 
row  of  fashionable  hats,  and  beneath  the  hats  were  the 
faces  of  fourteen  feminine  relatives  and  acquaintances. 
These  hats  performed  the  function  of  "dressing"  the 
house.  The  principal  player  endeavoured  to  behave  as 
though  under  the  illusion  that  he  was  alone  in  his  glory, 
but  he  failed. 

There  were  four  other  leading  actors:  Mr.  Penning- 
ton, K.C.,  and  Mr.  Vodrey,  K.C.,  engaged  by  the 
plaintiff,  and  Mr.  Cass,  K.C.,  and  Mr.  Crepitude,  K.C., 
engaged  by  the  defendant.    These  artistes  were  the  stars 


238  BURIED  ALIVE. 

of  their  profession,  nominally  less  glittering,  but  really- 
far  more  glittering  than  the  player  in  scarlet.  Their 
wigs  were  of  inferior  quality  to  his,  and  their  costumes 
shabby,  but  they  did  not  mind,  for  whereas  he  got  a 
hundred  a  week,  they  each  got  a  hundred  a  day. 
Three  junior  performers  received  ten  guineas  a  day 
apiece:  one  of  them  held  a  watching  brief  for  the  Dean 
and  Chapter  of  the  Abbey,  who,  being  members  of  a 
Christian  fraternity,  were  pained  and  horrified  by  the 
defendants'  implication  that  they  had  given  interment  to 
a  valet,  and  who  were  determined  to  resist  exhumation 
at  all  hazards.  The  supers  in  the  drama,  whose  busi- 
ness it  was  to  whisper  to  each  other  and  to  the  players, 
consisted  of  solicitors,  solicitors'  clerks,  and  experts; 
their  combined  emoluments  worked  out  at  the  rate  of  a 
hundred  and  fifty  pounds  a  day.  Twelve  excellent  men 
in  the  jury-box  received  between  them  about  as  much 
as  would  have  kept  a  K.C.  alive  for  five  minutes.  The 
total  expenses  of  production  thus  amounted  to  some- 
thing like  six  or  seven  hundred  pounds  a  day.  The 
preliminary  expenses  had  run  into  several  thousands. 
The  enterprise  could  have  been  made  remunerative  by 
hiring  for  it  Covent  Garden  Theatre  and  selling  stalls 
as  for  Tettrazzini  and  Caruso,  but  in  the  absurd  audi- 
torium chosen,  crammed  though  it  was  to  the  perilous 
doors,  the  loss  was  necessarily  terrific.  Fortunately  the 
affair  was  subsidised;  not  merely  by  the  State,  but  also 


MENTION   OF  "nVO   MOLES.  239 

"by  those  two  wealthy  capitaHsts,  Whitney  C.  Witt  and 
Mr.  Oxford;  and  therefore  the  management  were  in  a 
position  to  ignore  paltry  financial  considerations  and  to 
practise  art  for  art's  sake. 

In  opening  the  case  Mr.  Pennington,  K.C.,  gave  in- 
stant proof  of  his  astounding  histrionic  powers.  He 
began  calmly,  colloquially,  treating  the  jury  as  friends 
of  his  boyhood,  and  the  judge  as  a  gifted  uncle,  and 
stated  in  simple  language  that  Whitney  C.  Witt  was  . 
claiming  seventy-two  thousand  pounds  from  the  de- 
fendants, money  paid  for  worthless  pictures  palmed  off 
upon  the  myopic  and  venerable  plaintiff  as  masterpieces. 
He  recounted  the  life  and  death  of  the  great  painter 
Priam  Farll,  and  his  solemn  burial  and  the  tears  of  the 
whole  world.  He  dwelt  upon  the  genius  of  Priam  Farll, 
and  then  upon  the  confiding  nature  of  the  plaintiff. 
Then  he  inquired  who  could  blame  the  plaintiff  for  his 
confidence  in  the  uprightness  of  a  firm  with  such  a  name 
as  Parfitts.  And  then  he  explained  by  what  accident 
of  a  dating-stamp  on  a  canvas  it  had  been  discovered 
that  the  pictures  guaranteed  to  be  by  Priam  Farll  were 
painted  after  Priam  Farll's  death. 

He  proceeded  with  no  variation  of  tone:  "The  ex- 
planation is  simplicity  itself.  Priam  Farll  was  not  really 
dead.  It  was  his  valet  who  died.  Quite  naturally,  quite 
comprehensibly,  the  great  genius  Priam  Farll  wished  to 
pass   the   remainder   of  his   career   as  a  humble  valet. 


240  BURIED  ALIVE. 

He  deceived  everybody;  the  doctor,  his  cousin,  Mr. 
Duncan  Farll,  the  pubhc  authorities,  the  Dean  and 
Chapter  of  the  Abbey,  the  nation — in  fact,  the  entire 
world !  As  Henry  Leek  he  married,  and  as  Henry  Leek 
he  recommenced  the  art  of  painting  —  in  Putney;  he 
-carried  on  the  vocation  several  years  without  arousing 
the  suspicions  of  a  single  person;  and  then — by  a  curious 
coincidence  immediately  after  my  client  threatened  an 
action  against  the  defendant — he  displayed  himself  in 
his  true  identity  as  Priam  Farll.  Such  is  the  simple 
explanation,"  said  Pennington,  K.C.,  and  added,  "which 
you  will  hear  presently  from  the  defendant.  Doubtless 
it  will  commend  itself  to  you  as  experienced  men  of  the 
world.  You  cannot  but  have  perceived  that  such  things 
are  constantly  happening  in  real  life,  that  they  are  of 
daily  occurrence.  I  am  almost  ashamed  to  stand  up 
before  you  and  endeavour  to  rebut  a  story  so  plausible 
and  so  essentially  convincing.  I  feel  that  my  task  is 
well-nigh  hopeless.     Nevertheless,  I  must  do  my  best." 

And  so  on. 

It  was  one  of  his  greatest  feats  in  the  kind  of  irony 
that  appeals  to  a  jury.  And  the  audience  deemed  that 
the  case  was  already  virtually  decided. 

After  Whitney  C.  Witt  and  his  secretary  had  been 
called  and  had  filled  the  court  with  the  echoing  twang 
of  New  York  (the  controlled  fury  of  the  aged  Witt  was 
-highly  effective),   Mrs.  Henry  Leek   was   invited   to  the 


MENTION   OF  TWO   MOLES.  24 1 

witness-box.  She  was  supported  thither  by  her  two  curates, 
who,  however,  could  not  prevent  her  from  weeping  at  the 
stern  voice  of  the  usher.     She  related  her  marriage. 

"Is  that  your  husband?"  demanded  Vodrey,  K.C. 
(who  had  now  assumed  the  principal  role,  Pennington, 
K.C,  being  engaged  in  another  play  in  another  theatre), 
pointing  with  one  of  his  well-conceived  dramatic  gestures 
to  Priam  Farll. 

"It  is,"  sobbed  Mrs.  Henry  Leek. 
The  unhappy  creature  believed  what  she  said,  and 
the  curates,  though  silent,  made  a  deep  impression  on 
the  jury.  In  cross-examination,  when  Crepitude,  K.C, 
forced  her  to  admit  that  on  first  meeting  Priam  in  his 
house  in  Werter  Road  she  had  not  been  quite  sure  of 
his  identity,  she  replied — 

"It's  all  come  over  me  since.  Shouldn't  a  woman 
recognise  the  father  of  her  own  children?" 

"  She  should,"  interpolated  the  judge.   There  was  a  dif- 
ference of  opinion  as  to  whether  his  word  was  jocular  or  not. 
Mrs.   Henry  Leek   was   a   touching   figure,   but  not 
amusing.     It  was  Mr.  Duncan  Farll  who,  quite  uninten- 
tionally, supplied  the  first  relief. 

Duncan  pooh-poohed  the  possibility  of  Priam  being 
Priam.  He  detailed  all  the  circumstances  that  followed 
the  death  in  Selwood  Terrace,  and  showed  in  fifty  ways 
that  Priam  could  not  have  been  Priam.  The  man  now 
masquerading    as    Priam    was    not    even    a   gentleman, 

Buried  Alive.  ^O 


242  BURIED   ALIVE. 

whereas  Priam  was  Duncan's  cousin!  Duncan  was  an 
excellent  witness,  dry,  precise,  imperturbable.  Under 
cross-examination  by  Crepitude  he  had  to  describe  par- 
ticularly his  boyish  meeting  with  Priam.  Mr.  Crepitude 
was  not  inquisitive. 

"Tell  us  what  occurred,"  said  Crepitude. 

"Well,  we  fought." 

"Oh!  You  fought!  What  did  you  two  naughty  boys 
fight  about?"     (Great  laughter.) 

"About  a  plum-cake,  I  think." 

"Oh!  Not  a  seed-cake,  a  plum-cake?"  (Great 
laughter.) 

"I  think  a  plum-cake." 

"And  what  was  the  result  of  this  sanguinary  en- 
counter?"    (Great  laughter.) 

"My  cousin  loosened  one  of  my  teeth."  (Great 
laughter,  in  which  the  court  joined.) 

"And  what  did  you  do  to  him?" 

"Pm  afraid  I  didn't  do  much.  I  remember  tearing 
half  his  clothes  off."  (Roars  of  laughter,  in  which  every- 
one joined  except  Priam  and  Duncan  Farll.) 

"Oh!  You  are  sure  you  remember  that?  You  are 
sure  that  it  wasn't  he  who  tore  your  clothes  off?"  (Lots 
of  hysteric  laughter.) 

"Yes,"  said  Duncan,  coldly  dreaming  in  the  past. 
His  eyes  had  the  "far-away"  look,  as  he  added,  "I  re- 
member now  that  my  cousin  had  two  little  moles  on  his 


MENTION   OF  TWO   MOLES.  243 

neck  below  the  collar.  I  seem  to  remember  seeing 
them.     I've  just  thought  of  it." 

There  is,  of  course,  when  it  is  mentioned  in  a 
theatre,  something  exorbitantly  funny  about  even  one 
mole.     Two  moles  together  brought  the  house  down. 

Mr.  Crepitude  leaned  over  to  a  solicitor  in  front  of 
him;  the  solicitor  leaned  aside  to  a  solicitor's  clerk,  and 
the  solicitor's  clerk  whispered  to  Priam  Farll,  who  nodded. 

"Er "  Mr.  Crepitude  was  beginning  again,   but 

he  stopped  and  said  to  Duncan  Farll,  "Thank  you. 
You  can  step  down." 

Then  a  witness  named  Justini,  a  cashier  at  the 
Hotel  de  Paris,  Monte  Carlo,  swore  that  Priam  Farll, 
the  renowned  painter,  had  spent  four  days  in  the  Hotel 
de  Paris  one  hot  May,  seven  years  ago,  and  that  the 
person  in  the  court  whom  the  defendant  stated  to  be 
Priam  Farll  was  not  that  man.  No  cross-examination 
could  shake  Mr.  Justini.  Following  him  came  the 
manager  of  the  Hotel  Belvedere  at  Mont  Pelerin,  near 
Vevey,  Switzerland,  who  related  a  similar  tale  and  was 
equally  unshaken. 

And  after  that  the  pictures  themselves  were  brought 
in,  and  the  experts  came  after  them  and  technical  evi- 
dence was  begun.  Scarcely  had  it  begun  when  a  clock 
struck,  and  the  performance  ended  for  the  day.  The 
principal  actors  doffed  their  costumes,  and  snatched  up 
the  evening  papers  to  make  sure   that  the   descriptive 

16* 


244  BURIED  ALIVE. 

reporters  had  been  as  eulogistic  of  them  as  usual.  The 
judge,  who  subscribed  to  a  press-cutting  agency,  was 
glad  to  find,  the  next  morning,  that  none  of  his  jokes 
had  been  omitted  by  any  of  the  nineteen  chief  London 
dailies.  And  the  Strand  and  Piccadilly  were  quick  with 
Witt  V.  Parfitts — on  evening  posters  and  in  the  strident 
mouths  of  newsboys.  The  telegraph  wires  vibrated  to 
Witt  V.  Parfitts.  In  the  great  betting  industrial  towns 
of  the  provinces  wagers  were  laid  at  scientific  prices. 
England,  in  a  word,  was  content,  and  the  principal  actors 
had  the  right  to  be  content  also.  Very  astute  people  in 
clubs  and  saloon  bars  talked  darkly  about  those  two 
moles,  and  Priam's  nod  in  response  to  the  whispers  of 
the  solicitor's  clerk:  such  details  do  not  escape  the  mo- 
dern sketch  writer  at  a  thousand  a  year.  To  very  astute 
people  the  two  moles  appeared  to  promise  pretty  things. 

PRIAM'S   REFUSAL. 

"Leek  in  the  box." 

This  legend  got  itself  onto  the  telegraph  wires  and 
the  placards  within  a  few  minutes  of  Priam's  taking  the 
oath.  It  sent  a  shiver  of  anticipation  throughout  the 
country.  Three  days  had  passed  since  the  opening  of 
the  case  (for  actors  engaged  at  a  hundred  a  day  for 
the  run  of  the  piece  do  not  crack  whips  behind  experts 
engaged  at  ten  or  twenty  a  day;  the  pace  had  therefore 
been  dignified),  and  England  wanted  a  fillip. 


PRIAM'S  REFUSAL.  245 

Nobody  except  Alice  knew  what  to  expect  from 
Priam.  Alice  knew.  She  knew  that  Priam  was  in  an 
extremely  peculiar  state  which  might  lead  to  extremely 
peculiar  results;  and  she  knew  also  that  there  was  no- 
thing to  be  done  with  him !  She  herself  had  made  one 
little  effort  to  bathe  him  in  the  light  of  reason;  the  effort 
had  not  succeeded.  She  saw  the  danger  of  renewing 
it.  Pennington,  K.C.,  by  the  way,  insisted  that  she 
should  leave  the  court  during  Priam's  evidence. 

Priam's  attitude  towards  the  whole  case  was  one  of 
bitter  resentment,  a  resentment  now  hot,  now  cold.  He 
had  the  strongest  possible  objection  to  the  entire  affair. 
He  hated  Witt  as  keenly  as  he  hated  Oxford.  All  that 
he  demanded  from  the  world  was  peace  and  quietness, 
and  the  world  would  not  grant  him  these  inexpensive 
commodities.  He  had  not  asked  to  be  buried  in  West- 
minster Abbey;  his  interment  had  been  forced  upon 
him.  And  if  he  chose  to  call  himself  by  another  name, 
why  should  he  not  do  so?  If  he  chose  to  marry  a 
simple  woman,  and  live  in  a  suburb  and  paint  pictures 
at  ten  pounds  each,  why  should  he  not  do  so?  Why 
should  he  be  dragged  out  of  his  tranquillity  because 
two  persons  in  whom  he  felt  no  interest  whatever,  had 
quarrelled  over  his  pictures?  Why  should  his  life  have 
been  made  unbearable  in  Putney  by  the  extravagant 
curiosity  of  a  mob  of  journalists?  And  then,  why 
should  he  be  compelled,  by  means  of  a  piece  of  blue 


246  BURIED  ALIVTi:. 

paper,  to  go  through  the  frightful  ordeal  and  flame  of 
publicity  in  a  witness-box?  That  was  the  crowning  un- 
merited torture,  the  unthinkable  horror  which  had 
broken  his  sleep  for  many  nights. 

In  the  box  he  certainly  had  all  the  appearance  of 
a  trapped  criminal,  with  his  nervous  movements,  his 
restless  lowered  eyes,  and  his  faint,  hard  voice  that  he 
could  scarcely  fetch  up  from  his  throat.  Nervousness 
lined  with  resentment  forms  excellent  material  for  the 
plastic  art  of  a  cross-examining  counsel,  and  Pennington, 
K.C.,  itched  to  be  at  work.  Crepitude,  K.C.,  Oxford's 
counsel,  was  in  less  joyous  mood.  Priam  was  Crepitude's 
own  witness,  and  yet  a  horrible  witness,  a  witness  who 
had  consistently  and  ferociously  declined  to  open  his 
mouth  until  he  was  in  the  box.  Assuredly  he  had 
nodded,  in  response  to  the  whispered  question  of  the 
solicitor's  clerk,  but  he  had  not  confirmed  the  nod,  nor 
breathed  a  word  of  assistance  during  the  three  days  of 
the  trial.     He  had  merely  sat  there,   blazing  in  silence. 

"Your  name  is  Priam  Farll?"  began  Crepitude. 

"It  is,"  said  Priam  sullenly,  and  with  all  the  external 
characteristics  of  a  liar.  At  intervals  he  glanced  surrepti- 
tiously at  the  judge,  as  though  the  judge  had  been  a 
bomb  with  a  lighted  fuse. 

The  examination  started  badly,  and  it  went  from 
worse  to  worse.  The  idea  that  this  craven,  prevaricat- 
ing figure  in  the  box  could  be  the  illustrious,  the  world- 


Priam's  refusal.  247 

renowned  Priam  Faill,  seemed  absurd.  Crepitude  had 
to  exercise  all  his  self-control  in  order  not  to  bully 
Priam. 

"That  is  all,"  said  Crepitude,  after  Priam  had  given 
his  preposterous  and  halting  explanations  of  the  strange 
phenomena  of  his  life  after  the  death  of  Leek.  None 
of  these  carried  conviction.  He  merely  said  that  the 
woman  Leek  was  mistaken  in  identifying  him  as  her 
husband;  he  inferred  that  she  was  hysterical;  this  in- 
ference alienated  him  from  the  audience  completely. 
His  statement  that  he  had  no  definite  reason  for  pre- 
tending to  be  Leek — that  it  was  an  impulse  of  the  mo- 
ment— was  received  with  mute  derision.  His  explana- 
tion, when  questioned  as  to  the  evidence  of  the  hotel  of- 
ficials, that  more  than  once  his  valet  Leek  had  gone  about 
impersonating  his  master,  seemed  grotesquely  inadequate. 

People  wondered  why  Crepitude  had  made  no  re- 
ference to  the  moles.  The  fact  was,  Crepitude  was 
afraid  to  refer  to  the  moles.  Li  mentioning  the  moles 
to  Priam  he  might  be  staking  all  to  lose  all. 

However,  Pennington,  K.C.,  alluded  to  the  moles. 
But  not  until  he  had  conclusively  proved  to  the  judge, 
in  a  cross-questioning  of  two  hours'  duration,  that  Priam 
knew  nothing  of  Priam's  own  youth,  nor  of  painting, 
nor  of  the  world  of  painters.  He  made  a  sad  mess  of 
Priam.  And  Priam's  voice  grew  fainter  and  fainter, 
and  his  gestures  more  and  more  self-incriminating. 


248  BURIED   ALIVE. 

Pennington,  K.  C,  achieved  one  or  two  brilliant  little 
effects. 

"Now  you  say  you  went  with  the  defendant  to  his 
club,  and  that  he  told  you  of  the  difficulty  he  was  in!" 

"Yes." 

"Did  he  make  you  any  offer  of  money?" 

"Yes." 

"Ah!     What  did  he  offer  you?" 

"Thirty-six  thousand  pounds."     (Sensation  in  court.) 

"So!  And  what  was  this  thirty-six  thousand  pounds 
to  be  for?" 

"I  don't  know." 

"You  don't  know?     Come  now." 

"I  don't  know." 

"You  accepted  the  offer?" 

"No,  I  refused  it."     (Sensation  in  court.) 

"Why  did  you  refuse  it?" 

"Because  I  didn't  care  to  accept  it." 

"Then  no  money  passed  between  you  that  day?" 

"Yes.     Five  hundred  pounds." 

"What  for?" 

"A  picture." 

"The  same  kind  of  picture  that  you  had  been  selling 
at  ten  pounds?" 

"Yes." 

"So  that  on  the  very  day  that  the  defendant  wanted 
you   to  swear  that  you  were  Priam  Farll,    the  price  of 


PRIAM'S   REFUSAL.  249 

your  pictures  rose  from  ten  pounds  to  five  hun- 
dred?" 

"Yes." 

"Doesn't  that  strike  you  as  odd?" 

"Yes." 

"You  still  say — mind,  Leek,  you  are  on  your  oath! 
— you  still  say  that  you  refused  thirty-six  thousand 
pounds  in  order  to  accept  five  hundred." 

"I  sold  a  picture  for  five  hundred." 

(On  the  placards  in  the  Strand:  "Severe  cross- 
examination  of  Leek.") 

"Now  about  the  encounter  with  Mr.  Duncan  Farll. 
Of  course,  if  you  are  really  Priam  Farll,  you  remember 
all  about  that?" 

"Yes." 

"What  age  were  you?" 

"I  don't  know.     About  nine." 

"Oh!  You  were  about  nine.  A  suitable  age  for 
cake."  (Great  laughter.)  "Now,  j\Ir.  Duncan  Farll  says 
you  loosened  one  of  his  teeth." 

"I  did." 

"And  that  he  tore  your  clothes." 

"I  daresay." 

"He  says  he  remembers  the  fact  because  you  had 
two  moles." 

"Yes." 

"Have  you  two  moles?" 


2^6  teURTED  ALIVE. 

"Yes."     (Immense  sensation.) 

Pennington  paused. 

"Where  are  they?" 

"On  my  neck  just  below  my  collar." 

"Kindly  place  your  hand  at  the  spot." 

Priam  did  so.     The  excitement  was  terrific. 

Pennington  again  paused.  But,  convinced  that  Priam 
was  an  impostor,  he  sarcastically  proceeded — 

"Perhaps,  if  I  am  not  asking  too  much,  you  will 
take  your  collar  off  and  show  the  two  moles  to  the  court?" 

"No,"  said  Priam  stoutly.  And  for  the  first  time  he 
looked  Pennington  in  the  face. 

"You  would  prefer  to  do  it,  perhaps,  in  his  lord- 
ship's room,  if  his  lordship  consents." 

"I  won't  do  it  anywhere,"  said  Priam. 

"But  surely "  the  judge  began. 

"I  won't  do  it  anywhere,  my  lord,"  Priam  repeated 
loudly.  All  his  resentment  surged  up  once  more;  and 
particularly  his  resentment  against  the  little  army  of  ex- 
perts who  had  pronounced  his  pictures  to  be  clever  but 
worthless  imitations  of  himself.  If  his  pictures,  ad- 
mittedly painted  after  his  supposed  death,  could  not 
prove  his  identity;  if  his  word  was  to  be  flouted  by  in- 
sulting and  bewigged  beasts  of  prey;  then  his  moles 
should  not  prove  his  identity.    He  resolved  upon  obstinacy. 

"The  witness,  gentlemen,"  said  Pennington,  K.C.,  in 
triumph  to  the  jury,  "has  two  moles  on  his  neck,  exactly 


ALICE'S    PERFORMANCES.  i^t 

as  described  by  Mr.  Duncan  Farll,  but  he  will  not  dis- 
play them!" 

Eleven  legal  minds  bent  nobly  to  the  problem 
whether  the  law  and  justice  of  England  could  compel  a 
free  man  to  take  his  collar  off  if  he  refused  to  take  his 
collar  off.  In  the  meantime,  of  course,  the  case  had  to 
proceed.  The  six  or  seven  hundred  pounds  a  day  must 
be  earned,  and  there  were  various  other  witnesses.  The 
next  witness  was  Alice. 


CHAPTER    Xn. 
ALICE'S   PERFORMANCES. 

When  Alice  was  called,  and  when  she  stood  up  in 
the  box,  and,  smiling  indulgently  at  the  doddering  usher, 
kissed  the  book  as  if  it  had  been  a  chubby  nephew,  a 
change  came  over  the  emotional  atmosphere  of  the  court, 
which  felt  a  natural  need  to  smile.  Alice  was  in  all 
her  best  clothes,  but  it  cannot  be  said  that  she  looked 
the  wife  of  a  super-eminent  painter.  In  answer  to  a 
question  she  stated  that  before  marrying  Priam  she  was 
the  widow  of  a  builder  in  a  small  way  of  business,  well 
known  in  Putney  and  also  in  Wandsworth.  This  was 
obviously  true.  She  could  have  been  nothing  but  the 
widow  of  a  builder  in  a  small  way  of  business  well 
known  in  Putney  and  also  in  Wandsworth.  She  was 
every  inch  that. 


252  BURTED   ALIVE. 

"How  did  you  first  meet  your  present  husband, 
Mrs.  Leek?"  asked  Mr.  Crepitude. 

"Mrs.  Farll,  if  you  please,"  she  cheerfully  corrected  him. 

"Well,  Mrs.  Farll,  then." 

"I  must  say,"  she  remarked  conversationally,  "it 
seems  queer  you  should  be  calling  me  Mrs.  Leek,  when 

they're  paying  you  to  prove  that  I'm  Mrs.  Farll,  Mr. , 

excuse  me,  I  forget  your  name." 

This  nettled  Crepitude,  K.C.  It  nettled  him,  too, 
merely  to  see  a  witness  standing  in  the  box  just  as  if 
she  were  standing  in  her  kitchen  talking  to  a  tradesman 
at  the  door.  He  was  not  accustomed  to  such  a 
spectacle.  And  though  Alice  was  his  own  witness  he 
was  angry  with  her  because  he  was  angry  with  her 
husband.  He  blushed.  Juniors  behind  him  could  watch 
the  blush  creeping  like  a  tide  round  the  back  of  his 
neck  over  his  exceedingly  white  collar. 

"If  you'll  be  good  enough  to  reply "  said  he. 

"I  met  my  husband  outside  St.  George's  Hall,  by 
appointment,"  said  she. 

"But  before  that.  How  did  you  make  his  ac- 
quaintance?" 

"Through  a  matrimonial  agency,"  said  she. 

"Oh!"  observed  Crepitude,  and  decided  that  he 
would  not  pursue  that  avenue.  The  fact  was  Alice  had 
put  him  into  the  wrong  humour  for  making  the  best  of 
her.     She  was,  moreover,  in  a  very  difficult  position,  for 


ALICE'S  PERFORMANCES,  253 

Priam  had  positively  forbidden  her  to  have  any  speech 
with  soUcitors'  clerks  or  with  solicitors,  and  thus  Crepi- 
tude  knew  not  what  pitfalls  for  him  her  evidence  might 
contain.  He  drew  from  her  an  expression  of  opinion 
that  her  husband  was  the  real  Priam  Faril,  but  she 
could  give  no  reasons  in  support — did  not  seem  to  con- 
ceive that  reasons  in  support  were  necessary. 

"Has  your  husband  any  moles?"  asked  Crepitude 
suddenly. 

"Any  what?"  demanded  Alice,  leaning  forward. 

Vodrey,  K.C.,  sprang  up. 

"I  submit  to  your  lordship  that  my  learned  friend  is 
putting  a  leading  question,"  said  Vodrey,  K.C. 

"Mr.  Crepitude,"  said  the  judge,  "can  you  not  phrase 
your  questions  differently?" 

"Has  your  husband  any  birthmarks — er — on  his 
body?"  Crepitude  tried  again. 

"Oh!  Moles,  you  said?  You  needn't  be  afraid. 
Yes,  he's  got  two  moles,  close  together  on  his  neck, 
here."  And  she  pointed  amid  silence  to  the  exact  spot. 
Then,  noticing  the  silence,  she  added,  "That's  all  that 
I  know  of" 

Crepitude  resolved  to  end  his  examination  upon  this 
impressive  note,  and  he  sat  down.  And  Alice  had 
Vodrey,  K.C,  to  face. 

"You  met  your  husband  through  a  matrimonial 
agency?"  he  asked. 


2  54  BURIED   ALIVE. 

"Yes." 

"Who  first  had  recourse  to  the  agency?" 

"I  did." 

"And  what  was  your  object?" 

"I  wanted  to  find  a  husband,  of  course,"  she  smiled. 
"What  do  people  go  to  matrimonial  agencies  for?" 

"You  aren't  here  to  put  questions  to  me,"  said 
Vodrey  severely. 

"Well,"  she  said,  "I  should  have  thought  you  would 
have  known  what  people  went  to  matrimonial  agencies 
for.     Still,  you  live  and  learn."     She  sighed  cheerfully. 

"Do  you  think  a  matrimonial  agency  is  quite  the 
nicest  way  of " 

"It  depends  what  you  mean  by  'nice,'"  said  Alice. 

"Womanly." 

"Yes,"  said  Alice  shortly,  "I  do.  If  you're  going  to 
stand  there  and  tell  me  I'm  unwomanly,  all  I  have  to 
say  is  that  you're  unmanly." 

"You  say  you  first  met  your  husband  outside  St. 
George's  Hall?" 

"Yes." 

"Never  seen  him  before?" 

"No." 

"How  did  you  recognise  him?" 

"By  his  photograph." 

"Oh,  he'd  sent  you  his  photograph?" 

"Yes." 


ALICE'S  PERFORMANCES,  255 

"With  a  letter?" 

"Yes." 

"Ill  what  name  was  the  letter  signed?" 

"Henry  Leek." 

"Was  that  before  or  after  the  death  of  the  man  who 
was  buried  in  Westminster  Abbey?" 

"A  day  or  two  before."     (Sensation  in  court.) 

"So  that  your  present  husband  was  calling  himself 
Henry  Leek  before  the  death?" 

"No,  he  wasn't.  That  letter  was  written  by  the  man 
that  died.  My  husband  found  my  reply  to  it,  and  my 
photograph,  in  the  man's  bag  afterwards;  and  happen- 
ing to  be  strolling  past  St.  George's  Hall  just  at  the 
moment  like " 

"Well,  happening  to  be  strolling  past  St,  George's 
Hall  just  at  the  moment  like "  (Titters). 

"I  caught  sight  of  him  and  spoke  to  him.  You  see, 
I  thought  then  that  he  was  the  man  who  wrote  the  letter." 

"What  made  you  think  so?" 

"I  had  the  photograph." 

"So  that  the  man  who  wrote  the  letter  and  died 
didn't  send  his  own  photograph.  He  sent  another 
photograph — the  photograph  of  your  husband?" 

"Yes,  didn't  you  know  that?  I  should  have  thought 
you'd  have  known  that." 

"Do  you  really  expect  the  jury  to  believe  that  tale?" 

Alice  turned  smiling  to  the  jury.     "No,"  she  said, 


256  BURIED   AI,1VE, 

"I'm  not  sure  as  I  do.     I  didn't  believe  it  myself  for  a 
long  time.     But  it's  true." 

"Then  at  first  you  didn't  believe  your  husband  was 
the  real  Priam  Farll?" 

"No.  You  see,  he  didn't  exactly  tell  me  like.  He 
only  sort  of  hinted." 

"But  you  didn't  believe?" 

"No." 

"You  thought  he  was  lying?" 

"No,  I  thought  it  was  just  a  kind  of  an  idea  he  had. 
You  know  my  husband  isn't  like  other  gentlemen." 

"I  imagine  not,"  said  Vodrey.  "Now,  when  did  you 
come  to  be  perfectly  sure  that  your  husband  was  the 
real  Priam  Farll?" 

"It  was  the  night  of  that  day  when  Mr.  Oxford 
came  down  to  see  him.     He  told  me  all  about  it  then." 

"Oh!  That  day  when  Mr.  Oxford  paid  him  five 
hundred  pounds?" 

"Yes." 

"Immediately  Mr.  Oxford  paid  him  five  hundred 
pounds  you  were  ready  to  believe  that  your  husband 
was  the  real  Priam  Farll.  Doesn't  that  strike  you  as 
excessively  curious?" 

"It's  just  how  it  happened,"  said  Alice  blandly. 

"Now  about  these  moles.  You  pointed  to  the  right  side 
of  your  neck.   Are  you  sure  they  aren't  on  the  left  side?" 

"Let  me  think  now,"  said  Alice,  frowning.     "When 


THE  PUBLIC   CAPTIOUS.  257 

he's  shaving  in  a  morning — he  gets  up  earlier  now  than 
he  used  to — I  can  see  his  face  in  the  looking-gLass,  and 
in  the  looking-glass  the  moles  are  on  the  left  side.  So 
on  him  they  must  be  on  the  right  side.  Yes,  the  right 
side.     That's  it." 

"Have  you  never  seen  them  except  in  a  mirror,  my 
good  woman?"  interpolated  the  judge. 

For  some  reason  Alice  flushed.  "I  suppose  you 
think  that's  funny,"  she  snapped,  slightly  tossing  her  head. 

The  audience  expected  the  roof  to  fall.  But  the 
roof  withstood  the  strain,  thanks  to  a  sagacious  deafness 
on  the  part  of  the  judge.  If,  indeed,  he  had  not  been 
visited  by  a  sudden  deafness,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how 
he  would  have  handled  the  situation. 

"Have  you  any  idea,"  Vodrey  inquired,  "why  your 
husband  refuses  to  submit  his  neck  to  the  inspection  of 
the  court?" 

"I  didn't  know  he  had  refused." 

"But  he  has." 

"Well,"  said  Alice,  "if  you  hadn't  turned  me  out  of 
the  court  while  he  was  being  examined,  perhaps  I  could 
have  told  you.   But  I  can't  as  it  is.   So  it  serves  you  right." 

Thus  ended  Alice's  performances. 

THE  PUBLIC   CAPTIOUS. 

The  court  rose,  and  another  six  or  seven  hundred 
pounds   was   gone   into   the   pockets   of  the   celebrated 

Buried  Alive.  I  ^ 


258  BURIED  ALIVE. 

artistes  engaged.  It  became  at  once  obvious,  from  the 
tone  of  the  evening  placards  and  the  contents  of  even- 
ing papers,  and  the  remarks  in  crowded  suburban  trains, 
that  for  the  pubhc  the  trial  had  resolved  itself  into  an 
affair  of  moles.  Nothing  else  now  interested  the  great 
and  intelligent  public.  If  Priam  had  those  moles  on  his 
neck,  then  he  was  the  real  Priam.  If  he  had  not,  then 
he  was  a  common  cheat.  The  public  had  taken  the 
matter  into  its  own  hands.  The  sturdy  commonsense 
of  the  public  was  being  applied  to  the  affair.  On  the 
whole  it  may  be  said  that  the  sturdy  commonsense  of 
the  public  was  against  Priam.  For  the  majority,  the 
entire  story  was  fishily  preposterous.  It  must  surely  be 
clear  to  the  feeblest  brain  that  if  Priam  possessed  moles 
he  would  expose  them.  The  minority,  who  talked  of 
psychology  and  the  artistic  temperament,  were  regarded 
as  the  cousins  of  Little  Englanders  and  the  direct 
descendants  of  pro-Boers. 

Still,  the  thing  ought  to  be  proved  or  disproved. 

Why  didn't  the  judge  commit  him  for  contempt  of 
court?  He  would  then  be  sent  to  Holloway  and  be 
compelled  to  strip — and  there  you  were! 

Or  why  didn't  Oxford  hire  someone  to  pick  a 
quarrel  with  him  in  the  street  and  carry  the  quarrel  to 
blows,  with  a  view  to  raiment-tearing? 

A  nice  thing,  English  justice — if  it  had  no  machinery 


THE  PUBLIC   CAPTIOUS,  259 

to  force  a  man  to  show  his  neck  to  a  jury!  But  then 
EngUsh  justice  ivas  notoriously  comic. 

And  whole  trainfuls  of  people  sneered  at  their 
country's  institution  in  a  manner  which,  had  it  been 
adopted  by  a  foreigner,  would  have  plunged  Europe 
into  war  and  finally  tested  the  blue-water  theory.  Un- 
doubtedly the  immemorial  traditions  of  English  justice 
came  in  for  very  severe  handling,  simply  because  Priam 
would  not  take  his  collar  off. 

And  he  would  not. 

The  next  morning  there  were  consultations  in 
counsel's  rooms,  and  the  common  law  of  the  realm  was 
ransacked  to  find  a  legal  method  of  inspecting  Priam's 
moles,  without  success.  Priam  arrived  safely  at  the 
courts  with  his  usual  high  collar,  and  was  photographed 
thirty  times  between  the  kerb  and  the  entrance  hall, 

"He's  slept  in  it!"  cried  wags, 

"Bet  yer  two  ter  one  it's  a  clean  'un!"  cried  other 
wags.     "His  missus  gets  his  linen  up." 

It  was  subject  to  such  indignities  that  the  man  who 
had  defied  the  Supreme  Court  of  Judicature  reached 
his  seat  in  the  theatre.  When  solicitors  and  counsel  at- 
tempted to  reason  with  him,  he  answered  with  silence. 
The  rumour  ran  that  in  his  hip  pocket  he  was  carrying  a 
revolver  wherewith  to  protect  the  modesty  of  his  neck. 

The  celebrated  artistes,  having  perceived  the  folly 
of  losing  six  or  seven  hundred  pounds  a  day  because 

17* 


260  BURIED   ALIVE. 

Priam  happened  to  be  an  obstinate  idiot,  continued  with 
the  case.  For  Mr.  Oxford  and  another  army  of  ex- 
perts of  European  reputation  were  waiting  to  prove 
that  the  pictures  admittedly  painted  after  the  burial  in 
the  National  Valhalla,  were  painted  by  Priam  Farll, 
and  could  have  been  painted  by  no  other.  They  de- 
monstrated this  by  internal  evidence.  In  other  words, 
they  proved  by  deductions  from  squares  of  canvas  that 
Priam  had  moles  on  his  neck.  It  was  a  phenomenon 
eminently  legal.  And  Priam,  in  his  stiff  collar,  sat  and 
listened.  The  experts,  however,  achieved  two  feats, 
both  unintentionally.  They  sent  the  judge  soundly  to 
sleep,  and  they  wearied  the  public,  which  considered 
that  the  trial  was  falling  short  of  its  early  promise. 
This  expertise  went  on  to  the  extent  of  two  whole  days 
and  appreciably  more  than  another  thousand  pounds. 
And  on  the  third  day  Priam,  somewhat  hardened  to 
renown,  reappeared  with  his  mysterious  neck,  and 
more  determined  than  ever.  He  had  seen  in  a  paper, 
which  was  otherwise  chiefly  occupied  with  moles  and 
experts,  a  cautious  statement  that  the  police  had  col- 
lected the  necessary  prima  facie  evidence  of  bigamy, 
and  that  his  arrest  was  imminent.  However,  something 
stranger  than  arrest  for  bigamy  happened  to  him. 

NEW  EVIDENCE. 

The    principal   King's  Bench   corridor    in   the   Law 


NEW  EVIDENCE.  26  I 

Courts,  like  the  other  main  corridors,  is  a  place  of 
strange  meetings  and  interviews.  A  man  may  receive  there 
a  bit  of  news  that  will  change  the  whole  of  the  rest  of 
his  life,  or  he  may  receive  only  an  invitation  to  a 
mediocre  lunch  in  the  restaurant  underneath;  he  never 
knows  beforehand.  Priam  assuredly  did  not  receive  an 
invitation  to  lunch.  He  was  traversing  the  crowded 
thoroughfares — for  with  the  exception  of  match  and 
toothpick  sellers  the  corridor  has  the  characteristics  of 
a  Strand  pavement  in  the  forenoon — when  he  caught 
sight  of  Mr.  Oxford  talking  to  a  woman.  Now,  he  had 
exchanged  no  word  with  Mr.  Oxford  since  the  historic 
scene  in  the  club,  and  he  was  determined  to  exchange 
no  word;  however,  they  had  not  gone  through  the 
formality  of  an  open  breach.  The  most  prudent  thing 
to  do,  therefore,  was  to  turn  and  take  another  corridor. 
And  Priam  would  have  fled,  being  capable  of  astonish- 
ing prudence  when  prudence  meant  the  avoidance  of 
unpleasant  encounters;  but,  just  as  he  was  turning,  the 
woman  in  conversation  with  Mr.  Oxford  saw  him,  and 
stepped  towards  him  with  the  rapidity  of  thought,  hold- 
ing forth  her  hand.  She  was  tall,  thin,  and  stiffly  dis- 
tinguished in  the  brusque,  Dutch-doll  motions  of  her 
limbs.  Her  coat  and  skirt  were  quite  presentable;  but 
her  feet  were  large  (not  her  fault,  of  course,  though  one 
is  apt  to  treat  large  feet  as  a  crime),  and  her  feathered 
hat  was  even  larger.     She  hid  her  apre  behind  a  veil. 


2  62  BURIED  ALIVE. 

"How  do  you  do,  Mr.  Farll?"  she  addressed  him 
firmly,  in  a  voice  which  nevertheless  throbbed. 

It  was  Lady  Sophia  Entwistle. 

"How  do  you  do?"  he  said,  taking  her  offered  hand. 

There  was  nothing  else  to  do,  and  nothing  else  to  say. 

Then  Mr.  Oxford  put  out  his  hand. 

"How  do  you  do,  Mr.  Farll?" 

And,  taking  Mr.  Oxford's  hated  hand,  Priam  said 
again,  "How  do  you  do?" 

It  was  all  just  as  if  there  had  been  no  past;  the 
past  seemed  to  have  been  swallowed  up  in  the  ordinari- 
ness of  the  crowded  corridor.  By  all  the  rules  for  the 
guidance  of  human  conduct,  Lady  Sophia  ought  to 
have  denounced  Priam  with  outstretched  dramatic  finger 
to  the  contempt  of  the  world  as  a  philanderer  with  the 
hearts  of  trusting  women;  and  he  ought  to  have  kicked 
Mr.  Oxford  along  the  corridor  for  a  scheming  Hebrew. 
But  they  merely  shook  hands  and  asked  each  other 
how  they  did,  not  even  expecting  an  answer.  This 
shows  to  what  extent  the  ancient  qualities  of  the  race 
have  deteriorated. 

Then  a  silence. 

"I  suppose  you  know,  Mr.  Farll,"  said  Lady  Sophia, 
rather  suddenly,  "that  I  have  got  to  give  evidence  in 
this  case." 

"No,"  he  said,  "I  didn't." 

"Yes,  it  seems  they  have  scoured  all  over  the  Con- 


NEW  E\TDENCE.  263 

tinent  in  vain  to  find  people  who  knew  you  under  your 
proper  name,  and  who  could  identify  you  with  certainty, 
and  they  couldn't  find  one — doubtless  owing  to  your 
peculiar  habits  of  travel." 

"Really,"  said  Priam. 

He  had  made  love  to  this  woman.  He  had  kissed 
her.  They  had  promised  to  marry  each  other.  It  was 
a  piece  of  wild  folly  on  his  part;  but,  in  the  eyes  of  an 
impartial  person,  folly  could  not  excuse  his  desertion  of 
her,  his  flight  from  her  intellectual  charms.  His  gaze 
pierced  her  veil.  No,  she  was  not  quite  so  old  as 
Alice,  She  was  not  more  plain  than  Alice.  She  cer- 
tainly knew  more  than  Alice.  She  could  talk  about 
pictures  without  sticking  a  knife  into  his  soul  and  turn- 
ing it  in  the  wound.  She  was  better  dressed  than  Alice. 
And  her  behaviour  on  the  present  occasion,  candid, 
kind,  correct,  could  not  have  been  surpassed  by  Alice. 
And  yet  .  .  .  Her  demeanour  was  without  question  pro- 
digiously splendid  in  its  ignoring  of  all  that  she  had 
gone  through.  And  yet  .  .  .  Even  in  that  moment  of 
complicated  misery  he  had  enough  strength  to  hate  her 
because  he  had  been  fool  enough  to  make  love  to  her. 
No  excuse  whatever  for  him,  of  course! 

"I  was  in  India  when  I  first  heard  of  this  case," 
Lady  Sophia  continued.  "At  first  I  thought  it  must  be 
a  sort  of  Tichborne  business  over  again.  Then,  know- 
ing you  as  I  did,  I  thought  perhaps  it  wasn't." 


264  BURIED   ALIVE. 

"And  as  Lady  Sophia  happens  to  be  in  London 
now,"  put  in  Mr.  Oxford,  "she  is  good  enough  to  give 
her  invaluable  evidence  on  my  behalf." 

"That  is  scarcely  the  way  to  describe  it,"  said  Lady 
Sophia  coldly.  "I  am  only  here  because  you  compel 
me  to  be  here  by  subpoena.  It  is  all  due  to  your 
acquaintanceship  with  my  aunt," 

"Quite  so,  quite  so!"  Mr.  Oxford  agreed.  "It 
naturally  can't  be  very  agreeable  to  you  to  have  to  go 
into  the  witness-box  and  submit  to  cross-examination. 
Certainly  not.  And  I  am  the  more  obliged  to  you  for 
your  kindness,  Lady  Sophia." 

Priam  comprehended  the  situation.  Lady  Sophia, 
after  his  supposed  death,  had  imparted  to  relatives  the 
fact  of  his  engagement,  and  the  unscrupulous  scoundrel, 
Mr.  Oxford,  had  got  hold  of  her  and  was  forcing  her  to 
give  evidence  for  him.  And  after  the  evidence,  the 
joke  of  every  man  in  the  street  would  be  to  the  effect 
that  Priam  Farll,  rather  than  marry  the  skinny  spinster, 
had  pretended  to  be  dead. 

"You  see,"  Mr.  Oxford  added  to  him,  "the  im- 
portant point  about  Lady  Sophia's  evidence  is  that  in 
Paris  she  saw  both  you  and  your  valet — the  valet  obviously 
a  servant,  and  you  obviously  his  master.  There  can, 
therefore,  be  no  question  of  her  having  been  deceived 
by  the  valet  posing  as  the  master.  It  is  a  most  for- 
tunate   thing    that  by   a  mere   accident  I  got   on   the 


NEW  EVIDENCE.  265 

tracks  of  Lady  Sophia  iia  time.  In  the  nick  of  time. 
Only  yesterday  afternoon!" 

No  reference  by  Mr.  Oxford  to  Priam's  obstinacy  in 
the  matter  of  collars.  He  appeared  to  regard  Priam's 
collar  as  a  phenomenon  of  nature,  such  as  the  weather, 
or  a  rock  in  the  sea,  as  something  to  be  accepted  with 
resignation!  No  sign  of  annoyance  with  Priam!  He  was 
the  prince  of  diplomatists,  was  Mr.  Oxford. 

"Can  I  speak  to  you  a  minute?"  said  Lady  Sophia 
to  Priam. 

Mr.  Oxford  stepped  away  with  a  bow. 

And  Lady  Sophia  looked  steadily  at  Priam.  He 
had  to  admit  again  that  she  was  stupendous.  She  was 
his  capital  mistake;  but  she  was  stupendous. 

At  their  last  interview  he  had  embraced  her.  She 
had  attended  liis  funeral  in  Westminster  Abbey.  And 
she  could  suppress  all  that  from  her  eyes!  She  could 
stand  there  calm  and  urbane  in  her  acceptance  of  the 
terrific  past.     Apparently  she  forgave. 

Said  Lady  Sophia  simply,  "Now,  Mr.  Farll,  shall  I 
have  to  give  evidence  or  not?  You  know  it  depends 
on  you?" 

The  casualness  of  her  tone  was  sublime;  it  was 
heroic;  it  made  her  feet  small. 

He  had  sworn  to  himself  that  he  would  be  cut  in 
pieces  before  he  would  aid  the  unscrupulous  Mr.  Oxford 
by   removing   his   collar  in   presence  of  those  dramatic 


266  BURIED   ALIVE. 

artistes.  He  had  been  grossly  insulted,  disturbed,  mal- 
treated, and  exploited.  The  entire  world  had  meddled 
with  his  private  business,  and  he  would  be  cut  in  pieces 
before  he  would  display  those  moles  which  would  decide 
the  issue  in  an  instant. 

Well,  she  had  cut  him  in  pieces. 

"Please  don't  worry,"  said  he  in  reply.  "I  will  at- 
tend to  things." 

At  that  moment  Alice,  who  had  followed  him  by  a 
later  train,  appeared. 

"Good  morning,  Lady  Sophia,"  he  said,  raising  his 
hat,  and  left  her. 

THOUGHTS   ON  JUSTICE, 

"Farll  takes  his  collar  off."  "Witt  v.  Parfitts.  Re- 
sult." These  and  similar  placards  flew  in  the  Strand 
breezes.  Never  in  the  history  of  empires  had  the 
removal  of  a  starched  linen  collar  (size  16^/2)  created 
one-thousandth  part  of  the  sensation  caused  by  the  re- 
moval of  this  collar.  It  was  an  epoch-making  act.  It 
finished  the  drama  of  Witt  v.  Parfitts.  The  renowned 
artistes  engaged  did  not,  of  course,  permit  the  case  to 
collapse  at  once.  No,  it  had  to  be  concluded  slowly 
and  majestically,  with  due  forms  and  expenses.  New 
witnesses  {such  as  doctors)  had  to  be  called,  and  old 
ones  recalled.  Duncan  Farll,  for  instance,  had  to  be 
recalled,  and  if  the  situation  was  ignominious  for  Priara 


THOUGHTS    ON  JUSTICE.  267 

it  was  also  ignominious  for  Duncan.  Duncan's  sole 
advantage  in  his  defeat  was  that  the  judge  did  not  skin 
him  alive  in  the  summing  up,  nor  the  jury  in  their  ver- 
dict. England  breathed  more  freely  when  the  affair 
was  finally  over  and  the  renowned  artistes  engaged  had 
withdrawn  enveloped  in  glory.  The  truth  was  that 
England,  so  proud  of  her  systems,  had  had  a  fright. 
Her  judicial  methods  had  very  nearly  failed  to  make  a 
man  take  his  collar  off  in  public.  They  had  really 
failed,  but  it  had  all  come  right  in  the  end,  and  so 
England  pretended  that  they  had  only  just  missed  fail- 
ing. A  grave  injustice  would  have  been  perpetrated 
had  Priam  chosen  not  to  take  off  his  collar.  People 
said,  naturally,  that  imprisonment  for  bigamy  would 
have  included  the  taking-off  of  collars;  but  then  it  was 
rumoured  that  prosecution  for  bigamy  had  not  by  any 
means  been  a  certainty,  as  since  leaving  the  box  Mrs. 
Henry  Leek  had  wavered  in  her  identification.  How- 
ever, the  justice  of  England  had  emerged  safely.  And 
it  was  all  very  astounding  and  shocking  and  improper. 
And  everybody  was  exceedingly  wise  after  the  event. 
And  with  one  voice  the  press  cried  that  something  pain- 
ful ought  to  occur  at  once  to  Priam  Farll,  no  matter 
how  great  an  artist  he  was. 

The  question  was:  How  could  Priam  be  trapped  in 
the  net  of  the  law?  He  had  not  committed  bigamy. 
He    had    done    nothing.     He   had   only   behaved   in   a 


268  BURIED  ALIVE. 

negative  manner.  He  had  not  even  given  false  in- 
formation to  the  registrar.  And  Dr.  Cashmore  could 
throw  no  light  on  the  episode,  for  he  was  dead.  His 
wife  and  daughters  had  at  last  succeeded  in  killing  him. 
The  judge  had  intimated  that  the  ecclesiastical  wrath  of 
the  Dean  and  Chapter  might  speedily  and  terribly  over- 
take Priam  Farll;  but  that  sounded  vague  and  unsatis- 
factory to  the  lay  ear. 

In  short,  the  matter  was  the  most  curious  that  ever 
was.  And  for  the  sake  of  the  national  peace  of  mind, 
the  national  dignity,  and  the  national  conceit,  it  was 
allowed  to  drop  into  forgetfulness  after  a  few  days. 
And  when  the  papers  announced  that,  by  Priam's  wish, 
the  Farll  museum  was  to  be  carried  to  completion  and 
formally  conveyed  to  the  nation,  despite  all,  the  nation 
decided  to  accept  that  honourable  amend,  and  went  off 
to  the  seaside  for  its  annual  holiday. 

THE  WILL  TO  LIVE. 

Alice  insisted  on  it,  and  so,  immediately  before  their 
final  departure  from  England,  they  went.  Priam  pre- 
tended that  the  visit  was  undertaken  solely  to  please 
her;  but  the  fact  is  that  his  own  morbid  curiosity  moved 
in  the  same  direction.  They  travelled  by  an  omnibus 
past  the  Putney  Empire  and  the  Walham  Green  Empire 
as  far  as  Walham  Green,  and  there  changed  into  an- 
other one  which  carried  them  past  the  Chelsea  Empire, 


THE  WILL  TO  LIVE.  269 

the  Army  and  Navy  Stores,  and  the  Hotel  Windsor  to 
the  doors  of  Westminster  Abbey.  And  they  vanished 
out  of  the  October  sunshine  into  the  beam-shot  gloom 
of  Valhalla.  It  was  Alice's  first  view  of  Valhalla,  though 
of  course  she  had  heard  of  it.  In  old  times  she  had 
visited  Madame  Tussaud's  and  the  Tower,  but  she  had 
not  had  leisure  to  get  round  as  far  as  Valhalla.  It  im- 
pressed her  deeply.  A  verger  pointed  them  to  the  nave; 
but  they  dared  not  demand  more  minute  instructions. 
They  had  not  the  courage  to  ask  for  //.  Priam  could 
not  speak.  There  were  moments  with  him  when  he 
could  not  speak  lest  his  soul  should  come  out  of  his 
mouth  and  flit  irrecoverably  away.  And  he  could  not 
find  the  tomb.  Save  for  the  outrageous  tomb  of  mighty 
Newton,  the  nave  seemed  to  be  as  naked  as  when  it 
came  into  the  world.  Yet  he  was  sure  he  was  buried 
in  the  nave — and  only  three  years  ago,  too!  Astound- 
ing, was  it  not,  what  could  happen  in  three  years?  He 
knew  that  the  tomb  had  not  been  removed,  for  there 
had  been  an  article  in  the  Daily  Record  on  the  previous 
day  asking  in  the  name  of  a  scandalised  public  whether 
the  Dean  and  Chapter  did  not  consider  that  three 
months  was  more  than  long  enough  for  the  correction 
of  a  fundamental  error  in  the  burial  department.  He 
was  gloomy;  he  had  in  truth  been  somewhat  gloomy 
ever  since  the  trial.  Perhaps  it  was  the  shadow  of  the 
wrath    of   the   Dean    and    Chapter    on    him.     He   had 


270  BURIED   ALIVK. 

ceased  to  procure  joy  in  the  daily  manifestations  of  life 
in  the  streets  of  the  town.  And  this  failure  to  discover 
the  tomb  intensified  the  calm,  amiable  sadness  which 
distinguished  him. 

Alice,  gazing  around,  chiefly  with  her  mouth,  in- 
quired suddenly — 

"What's  that  printing  there?" 

She  had  detected  a  legend  incised  on  one  of  the 
small  stone  flags  which  form  the  vast  floor  of  the  nave. 
They  stooped  over  it.  "Priam  Farll,"  it  said  simply, 
in  fine  Roman  letters  and  then  his  dates.  That  was 
all.  Near  by,  on  other  flags,  they  deciphered  other 
names  of  honour.  This  austere  method  of  marking  the 
repose  of  the  dead  commended  itself  to  him,  caused 
him  to  feel  proud  of  himself  and  of  the  ridiculous  Eng- 
land that  somehow  keeps  our  great  love.  His  gloom 
faded.  And  do  you  know  what  idea  rushed  from  his 
heart  to  his  brain?  "By  Jove!  I  will  paint  finer 
pictures  than  any  I've  done  yet!"  And  the  impulse  to 
recommence  the  work  of  creation  surged  over  him.  The 
tears  started  to  his  eyes. 

"I  like  that!"  murmured  Alice,  gazing  at  the  stone. 
"I  do  think  that's  nice." 

And  he  said,  because  he  truly  felt  it,  because  the 
will  to  live  raged  through  him  again,  tingling  and 
smarting : 

"I'm  Sflad  I'm  not  there." 


ON  BOARD.  271 

They  smiled  at  each  other,  and  their  instinctive 
hands  fumbUngly  met. 

A  few  days  later,  the  Dean  and  Chapter,  stung  into 
action  by  the  majestic  rebuke  of  the  Daily  Record, 
amended  the  floor  of  Valhalla  and  caused  the  mortal 
residuum  of  the  immortal  organism  known  as  Henry 
Leek  to  be  nocturnally  transported  to  a  different  bed. 

ON  BOARD. 

A  few  days  later,  also,  a  North  German  Lloyd 
steamer  quitted  Southampton  for  Algiers,  bearing  among 
its  passengers  Priam  and  Alice.  It  was  a  rough  starlit 
night,  and  from  the  stern  of  the  vessel  the  tumbled 
white  water  made  a  pathway  straight  to  receding  Eng- 
land. Priam  had  come  to  love  the  slopes  of  Putney 
with  the  broad  river  at  the  foot;  but  he  showed  what  I 
think  was  a  nice  feeling  in  leaving  England.  His 
sojourn  in  our  land  had  not  crowned  him  with  brilliance. 
He  was  not  a  being  created  for  society,  nor  for  cutting 
a  figure,  nor  for  exhibiting  tact  and  prudence  in  the 
crises  of  existence.  He  could  neither  talk  well  nor  read 
well,  nor  express  himself  in  exactly  suitable  actions. 
He  could  only  express  himself  at  the  end  of  a  brush. 
He  could  only  paint  extremely  beautiful  pictures.  That 
was  the  major  part  of  his  vitality.  Li  minor  ways  he 
may  have  been,  upon  occasions,  a  fool.  But  he  was 
never  a  fool  on  canvas.     He  said  everything  there,  and 


27^  EURTED  ALIVE. 

said  it  to  perfection,  for  those  who  could  read,  for  those 
who  can  read,  and  for  those  who  will  be  able  to  read 
five  hundred  years  hence.  Why  expect  more  from  him? 
Why  be  disappointed  in  him?  One  does  not  expect  a 
wire-walker  to  play  fine  billiards.  You  yourself,  mirror 
of  prudence  that  you  are,  would  have  certainly  avoided 
all  Priam's  manifold  errors  in  the  conduct  of  his  social 
career;  but,  you  see,  he  was  divine  in  another  way. 

As  the  steamer  sped  along  the  lengthening  pathway 
from  England,  one  question  kept  hopping  in  and  out  of 
his  mind: 

""/  wonder  ivhat  they'll  do  with  me  next  time?" 
Do  not  imagine  that  he  and  Alice  were  staring  over 
the  stern  at  the  singular  isle.  No!  There  were  im- 
perative reasons,  which  affected  both  of  them,  against 
that.  It  was  only  in  the  moments  of  the  comparative 
calm  which  always  follows  insurrections,  that  Priam  had 
leisure  to  wonder,  and  to  see  his  own  limitations,  and 
joyfully  to  meditate  upon  the  prospect  of  age  devoted  to 
the  sole  doing  of  that  which  he  could  so  supremely,  in 
a  sweet  exile  with  the  enchantress,  Alice. 

THE  END. 


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